Overview

John Paul Jones, at sea and in the heat of 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. John Paul Jones is more than a great sea story. Jones is a character for the ages. John Adams called him the most ambitious and intriguing officer in the American Navy. The renewed interest in the Founding Fathers reminds us of the great men who made this country, but John Paul Jones 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. Evan Thomas brings his skills as a biographer to this complex, protean figure whose life and rise are both thrilling as a tale of dauntless courage and revealing about the birth of a nation. Superlative... Both Jones and his latest biographer can justly be praised as masters of their respective crafts Publishers Weekly Evan Thomas captures all the incongruities, vanities, blazing ambition, and phenomenal courage of his subject David McCullough, author of John Adams

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Reviews

"""A penetrating biography...an adventure story...Part George Patton, part Jesse James, Jones was, as it turns out, a perfect American hero."" -- ""New York Times Book Review"" ""Evan Thomas captures all the incongruities, vanities, blazing ambition, and phenomenal courage of his subject"" -- ""David McCullough, author of John Adams"" ""Every sentence is written with grace and style...Thomas opens a window on the squalid, demeaning, and hazardous milieu of eighteenth-century mariners and provides unsurpassed descriptions of naval battles."" -- ""Washington Post"" ""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...a compelling narrative of one of America's great sea heroes."" -- ""Barnes & Noble, editorial review"" ""Superlative...Both Jones and his latest biographer can justly be praised as masters of their respective crafts"" -- ""Publishers Weekly"""

Author Information

Evan Thomas is coauthor, with Walter Isaacson, of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made and the author of 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 he lives with his wife and two daughters in Washington, D.C. Dan Cashman is an American television actor, producer, and audiobook narrator who has also appeared in many television movies such as Dangerous Women, The Invisible Man, and The Pretender.

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