Rating: 
Summary: An Enigmatic, Supremely Stubborn American Hero
Review: This marvellous, entertaining new biography of the American naval hero John Paul Jones captures him in all his flawed glory. During the Revolutionary War, the fledgling US Navy was no match for the British Navy, which was accustomed to whipping all comers on the high seas. Against this background of near-universal American failure, Jones upset the complacency and arrogance of the British public with a series of dashing raids and single-ship battles in the home waters of England, culminating with his incredible capture of a brand new British ship-of-the-line, Serapis, which easily outgunned his leaky old Indiaman, the Bonhomme Richard. This victory was due almost exclusively to Jones' famous and near-insane refusal to surrender.Valiant at sea, Jones was often lost ashore, like many great captains. Jones alienated his few patrons, and was accurately described by John Adams as "leprous with vanity." Jones, in his turn, called Adams "conceited" (certainly true) and "wicked" (not true, but debatable). Like Alexander Hamilton, he was an insecure, intelligent, but impoverished lowland Scot with a yen for intellectual improvement, a penchant for wenching, and a whiff of bastardy. Unlike Alexander Hamilton (to my knowledge, anyway), he wrote fragments of homoerotic verse in Latin, found hidden among his papers after death, and had an unpleasant proclivity for teenage girls. Thomas' biography is always lively and at times surprising, packing a great deal of punch in its brief 311 pages. The battles at sea are particularly rousing.
Rating: 
Summary: Medicore hero, medicore book
Review: What a difference half a decade can make! In 1774 John Paul was a destitute ex-slave-ship captain on the lam, forsaking his native Scotland for the unknown British colonies of North America. In 1779, that same man, now known as John Paul Jones, was the most feared pirate of the British Isles, the victor of an incredible sea battle which made his name across the Continent, and the first great figure of what would become the American Navy. Evan Thomas's "John Paul Jones" begins aboard of Bonhomme Richard, a crank Indiaman under Jones' fractious command, just as it is about to engage the British man-of-war Serapis off England's Flamborough Head. Cannons are primed, sand is spread over the decks to keep them from becoming slick with blood, and the doctor in the cockpit lays out buckets and saws for the surgery ahead. The Bonhomme Richard would not survive the battle, but Jones would emerge victorious anyway, plucking victory from the jaws of defeat by virtue of his grit and visionary fortitude. Thomas makes a great story out of Jones' life. A senior writer with Newsweek, he is nothing if not readable, with attention for detail and a zest for the telling touch. After allowing a pair of lieutenants to hit up an earl for his silver, Jones goes out of his way to make amends, writing florid and flirtatious letters to the earl's wife and then, finally, returning the silver. "The tea leaves were still inside the teapot," Thomas writes. He offers some interesting insight into what made Jones tick. It's very engaging, and fits together, but as a shrink, Thomas is a good journalist. A lot of times he talks up some awful situation Jones faced, being passed over or calumnied by his Revolutionary brethren, and ascribes the result to Jones' overweening pride. Jones seems to have been a proud man, though not excessively so given his accomplishments or the age he lived in. He did tarry in Paris a bit long between battles, but he was also given some pretty lacking subordinates and superiors. Thomas calls him "the father of the American Navy." It was interesting to read others here saying that John Barry deserves that title. I find myself agreeing with Thomas. Barry was an accomplished commander, and America was lucky to have him, but Jones captured the imagination in a way that would resonate through the centuries. He was quoted, erroneously but with ringing grandeur, by U.S. naval leaders scraping themselves off the sea floor after Pearl Harbor. He remains a figure of pride today. He may never have said "I have not yet begun to fight," but he sure walked the walk. I would have liked Thomas to have laid off the dime-store Freud and focused a chapter on just how much of an outlier he was in the early American naval tradition. Thomas does mention Barry in a footnote, and speaks passingly of other decent captains such as Gustavus Conyngham, a privateer who took the fight to English shores before Jones, but most of his analysis of the Revolutionary Navy is so disparaging as to beg wonder at how the Americans won, Jones or no. It's entertaining reading of losers like John Manley and Dudley Saltonstall, and no doubt accurate, but just how much of a sorry lot was the first U.S. Navy? We are told that when Jones engaged the Serapis, "no captain of an American navy ship had ever defeated and captured a British man-of-war of any real size or strength." But how unusual were Jones' successes? My sense is that when you include his capture of General Burgoyne's winter uniforms in 1776, and his harassment of British trade ships off the coasts of Nova Scotia and the home islands, Jones simply towers over his contemporaries. Just how much so would have made for good reading. Instead, we get a lengthy examination of his poor record as a lothario, cadging young women, some disturbingly young, and writing verse of obvious below-the-beltline focus. He places his trust in charlatans and spies, and Thomas has at him for it, but the feeling that he may have been more of a victim of his own patriotism and honest zeal for liberty is not adequately addressed. One interesting comparison Thomas makes all-too-briefly is with another American military commander, Benedict Arnold. It can be argued that Jones did at sea what Arnold did on land, giving legitimacy to the Revolutionary struggle via a blazing triumph against all odds. Both were traduced by scheming cohorts, and underappreciated by superiors. "But unlike Arnold, Jones remained steadfast to the American cause," Thomas notes. That seems a point worth remembering. Even opting out of the U.S. Navy itself and becoming an American privateer, as many did, would have allowed Jones to make more money without committing treason. But he didn't. That's more worth study than his dalliances with the ladies of Holland or France. Thomas writes about Jones with appropriate zest and awe, and his book is a true joy, but its a bit of a missed opportunity too, in not getting past the trendy cynicism of our time and figuring out what makes for a genuine patriot. It's a good biography in the warts-and-all tradition of our day, just not definitive.
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