Evan Thomas’s John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy grounds itself on the facts of Jones’s life and accomplishments to bolster his place among the pantheon of Revolutionary heroes while also working to deflate the myths that have circulated about his name. Jones, we learn, was confronted throughout his life with controversy and was crippled by ambition. But Thomas lauds Jones for early innovations as an American self-made man who rose from Scottish servitude.

Jones, despite his too brisk manner, was a true success, if not genius, as a naval captain. Early in the Revolutionary War, he captured a shipload of winter uniforms destined for General Burgoyne’s army in Canada, which instead warmed General Washington’s troops as they swept across the Delaware to defeat British at Princeton and Trenton. Later, Jones helped formulate the Navy’s plan of psychological warfare on British citizens. And Jones’s strategy to cut off the British fleet via the French Navy was arguably the most decisive strategic decision of the War.

In the end, Thomas makes a good case for a renewed appreciated for Jones’s role in the broader revolution, citing his many connections to the Founding Fathers and his contributions to the broader war effort. While it may be that the John Paul Jones who proclaimed "I have not yet begun to fight" never existed, the real man behind the textbook legend is every bit as compelling a figure in Thomas’s hands. This temperate biography situates Jones in what will likely prove durable fashion among portraits of Adams, Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson. --Patrick O'Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
This superlative biography from Newsweek assistant managing editor Thomas (Robert Kennedy, His Life) can hold its own on the shelf with Samuel Eliot Morison's Pulitzer Prize-winning Jones bio, A Sailor's Story. It does not add much to our knowledge of the events of its subject's life (from his birth in lowland Scotland in 1747 to his lonely death in revolutionary Paris in 1792), but it adds interpretations and dimensions to practically every event that has been recorded elsewhere. Jones's reception in the rebellious colonies, for example, where he arrived as a fugitive from justice, was much helped by his Masonic affiliations. His (frequently successful) pursuit of the ladies raised eyebrows, and his conduct during the famous ship to ship engagement between Bonhomme Richard and Serapis was more stubborn than sound. The British Captain Pearson was deservedly knighted for saving his valuable convoy from Jones's attack, and Captain Landais of the frigate Alliance may have mistaken his target in poor visibility when he fired some damaging broadsides into Jones's ship, rather than being treacherous or mad as tradition would have it. Jones was clearly prickly, socially ambitious, a difficult subordinate (he alienated every American diplomat in France except Benjamin Franklin) and a martinet as a superior. Jones was also a superb practical seaman (the survival of the frigate Ariel in a hurricane is only the most gripping example), a charismatic combat leader and a man with a vision of the American naval future. Both Jones and his latest biographer can justly be praised as masters of their respective crafts.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
The hero buried beneath the chapel at the American Naval Academy was a study in contradictions. Selfless in battle, he was notably self-regarding in society. John Adams called him "leprous with vanity." Jones fought brilliantly to create a new world yet so yearned to please the aristocracy of the old one that he returned Lady Selkirk's silver plate after having risked his life to capture it on a raid on the coast of Scotland. Dan Cashman's voice is a fine, clear instrument, but his performance is marred by its ambition. The light brogue with which he italicizes Jones's own words is welcome. His attempt to affect a different accent for every character--French/Russian, man/woman, young/old--is markedly less successful. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Thomas is currently the assistant managing editor of Newsweek. With the skill appropriate to a polished journalist, Thomas chronicles the short, but glorious, life of a brilliant, but frustratingly difficult, man, who was the first American naval hero. Jones was born in Scotland and came to America with little more than driving ambition and an immense ego. Despite a prickly personality dominated by stubbornness and self-righteousness, Jones quickly rose to a command position in the new American navy. Thomas is at his best in his vivid description of Jones' famous victory over the British warship Serapis in the North Sea. This is a stunning, blow-by-blow account of a titanic battle in which Jones triumphed against superior firepower. Unfortunately, Jones' exploits during the Revolutionary War were the high points of his career. With compassion and a feel for the essential sadness at the core of the man, Thomas shows his gradual decline. This is a fine account of the life of an admirable, but deeply flawed, man. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Nathaniel Philbrick Author of In the Heart of the Sea Evan Thomas's John Paul Jones is a fascinating, totally engrossing biography of the man who dared to take the American Revolution to the shores of England. The definitive account of America's first and foremost naval hero.


Book Description
John Paul Jones, at sea and in the heat of the battle, was the great American hero of the Age of Sail. He was to history what Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower are to fiction. Ruthless, indomitable, clever; he vowed to sail, as he put it, "in harm's way." Evan Thomas's minute-by-minute re-creation of the bloodbath between Jones's Bonhomme Richard and the British man-of-war Serapis off the coast of England on an autumn night in 1779 is as gripping a sea battle as can be found in any novel. Drawing on Jones's correspondence with some of the most significant figures of the American Revolution -- John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson -- Thomas's biography teaches us that it took fighters as well as thinkers, men driven by dreams of personal glory as well as high-minded principle, to break free of the past and start a new world. Jones's spirit was classically American.


About the Author
Evan Thomas is the author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (with Walter Isaacson); The Man to See: The Life of Edward Bennett Williams; The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared, the Early Years of the CIA; and Robert Kennedy: His Life. He is the assistant managing editor of Newsweek magazine and lives with his wife and two daughters in Washington, D.C.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
In this stellar biography of Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones, journalist-biographer Evan Thomas skillfully navigates the waters of the eccentric Jones's life, beginning with Jones's humble birth in Scotland as the son of a gardener and continuing to his peak as a captain in the American Navy. Armed with engaging prose and impeccable research, Thomas presents a compelling portrait of a brilliant commander, fearless leader, and dashing figure best known for his courageous exploits at sea in the Revolution.

Thomas displays great skill at conveying the tough beginnings of the young sailor in the Royal Navy. Venturing to sea at the age of 13, Jones -- like all seamen and officers -- faced a lonely and harsh life. But with meritocracy beginning to take hold in America, the ambitious Jones migrated to the British colony. Even here, he struggled to get recognition for his talents and became embittered. Thomas depicts Jones at this stage of his career as a man with great pretensions, a "hustler" who tried to distinguish himself in the officer class as well as in American society. He was also powerfully drawn to women, and Thomas documents Jones's romantic exploits in rich detail -- including his time in pre-Republican France, where he romanced numerous mademoiselles. The revolution finally provided Jones his chance to shine; at a time when most rebel officers shrank from confrontation with the famed British navy, Jones's bravado and boldness led him to become one of the enduring historical figures of early America.

Thomas, who has also authored a superb biography of Robert Kennedy, has written a compelling narrative of one of America's great sea heroes. Glenn Speer

FROM THE PUBLISHER

John Paul Jones, at sea and in the heat of the battle, was the great American hero of the Age of Sail. He was to history what Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower are to fiction. Ruthless, indomitable, clever; he vowed to sail, as he put it, "in harm's way." Evan Thomas's minute-by-minute re-creation of the bloodbath between Jones's Bonhomme Richard and the British man-of-war Serapis off the coast of England on an autumn night in 1779 is as gripping a sea battle as can be found in any novel. Drawing on Jones's correspondence with some of the most significant figures of the American Revolution -- John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson -- Thomas's biography teaches us that it took fighters as well as thinkers, men driven by dreams of personal glory as well as high-minded principle, to break free of the past and start a new world. Jones's spirit was classically American.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

As Mr. Thomas tracks the man born John Paul (he added the Jones to escape punishment for a deadly fight) from the Atlantic to France and the British Isles, he displays ardent interest in sail appeal. Mr. Thomas knows that futtocks are ribbing in a ship's frame, and that Jones fought in "the dumpy Bonhomme Richard, with her antiquated high poop deck." And he ably captures the slow, mounting terror of battle at sea. — Janet Maslin

The Washington Post

In this insightful biography, Evan Thomas, an editor at 'Newsweek' and also a biographer of Edward Bennett Williams and Robert Kennedy, ably demonstrates that Jones both succeeded and failed. He rose to a grander position than he could ever have imagined, winning the plaudits of several European monarchs while enjoying the confidence of Jefferson, Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Even so, Jones's all-consuming ambition was thwarted. He failed to attain the rank of admiral in the American navy and the devotion of the American public. Indeed, he died young and feeling forgotten in Paris in 1792, and his feats continued to be neglected until Theodore Roosevelt resurrected Jones's reputation in order to provide the country with a naval hero. — John Ferling

The New Yorker

The father of the American Navy proves to be an elusive character -- both at sea, where he consistently outmaneuvered British men-of-war, and in scholarship, where the legend of his life has overwhelmed the facts. The Jones revered today is, as Thomas explains, largely the creation of Theodore Roosevelt, who wanted a role model for the Nav's officer corps. In this reappraisal, Thomas presents the Scottish-born captain as a first-class entrepreneur of war but doesn't obscure the haphazard way in which Jones's naval victories unfolded, the constant wheedling for position that alienated his patrons, or his sexual escapades. The complex portrait is rendered with nautical precision -- the author knows his topsail from his topgallant -- and a lively eye for such details as the Enlightenment virtues espoused by Free-masonry or the proper way to kiss a French lady in the eighteenth century (on the neck, so as not to disturb her makeup).

Publishers Weekly

This superlative biography from 'Newsweek' assistant managing editor Thomas (Robert Kennedy, His Life) can hold its own on the shelf with Samuel Eliot Morison's Pulitzer Prize-winning Jones bio, A Sailor's Story. It does not add much to our knowledge of the events of its subject's life (from his birth in lowland Scotland in 1747 to his lonely death in revolutionary Paris in 1792), but it adds interpretations and dimensions to practically every event that has been recorded elsewhere. Jones's reception in the rebellious colonies, for example, where he arrived as a fugitive from justice, was much helped by his Masonic affiliations. His (frequently successful) pursuit of the ladies raised eyebrows, and his conduct during the famous ship to ship engagement between Bonhomme Richard and Serapis was more stubborn than sound. The British Captain Pearson was deservedly knighted for saving his valuable convoy from Jones's attack, and Captain Landais of the frigate Alliance may have mistaken his target in poor visibility when he fired some damaging broadsides into Jones's ship, rather than being treacherous or mad as tradition would have it. Jones was clearly prickly, socially ambitious, a difficult subordinate (he alienated every American diplomat in France except Benjamin Franklin) and a martinet as a superior. Jones was also a superb practical seaman (the survival of the frigate Ariel in a hurricane is only the most gripping example), a charismatic combat leader and a man with a vision of the American naval future. Both Jones and his latest biographer can justly be praised as masters of their respective crafts. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal