Traces the early life of the Scottish sea captain who became a hero in the American Revolution and founded the U.S. Navy.

Illustrated by period artwork and photographs of historical artifacts, a biography of John Paul Jones describes how the Scots immigrant served in the Continental Navy during the American Revolution and led his men to victory over the world's greatest sea power.

Winner of the Samuel Eliot Morrison Award for Excellence in Naval Literature. This fresh look at America's first sea warrior avoids both the hero worship of the past and the recent, inaccurate deconstructionist views of John Paul Jones's astonishing life. The author goes beyond a narrow naval context to establish Jones as a key player in the American Revolution, something not done by previous biographers, and explains what drove him to his achievements. At the same time, Admiral Joseph Callo fully examines Jones's dramatic military achievements—including his improbable victory off Flamborough Head in the Continental ship Bonhomme Richard—but in the context of the times rather than as stand-alone events. The book also looks at some interesting but lesser-known aspects of Jones's naval career, including his relationships with such civilian leaders as Benjamin Franklin. How Jones handled those often-difficult dealings, Callo maintains, contributed to the nation's concept of civilian control of the military. Suggesting that Jones might well be the first U.S. apostle of sea power, the author also focuses on the fact that Jones was the first serving American naval officer who emphasized the role naval power would play in the rise of the United States as a global power. Another neglected aspect of Jones's career that gets attention and analysis is his brief tour in the Russian navy, a revealing chapter of his life that has been underreported in the two hundred years since Jones's death. Rather than looking at Jones in a rearview mirror, Callo illuminates how this unique naval hero is linked to the nation's present and future. As a result, he gives us a sea saga that tells much about our own lives and times.

The New York Times bestseller from master biographer Evan Thomas brings to life the tumultuous story of the father of the American Navy. 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.

Presents the life and career of John Paul Jones, a naval hero of the American Revolution, who is considered called the father of the American navy.

A Biography Of The Sea Captain Who, During The Revolutionary War, Gave The American Navy Its Earliest Tradition Of Heroism And Victory. A Discovery Book.

A biography of the naval hero of the Revolution.

A classic biography of John Paul Jones for young readers in a new, illustrated edition. Called a pirate by the British and a patriot by the Americans, John Paul Jones was a brilliant sea captain, a true American hero, and the father of the U.S. Navy. With this classic biography for young readers by Newbery Medal winner Armstrong Sperry, readers will imagine themselves on deck at the side of the great captain, engaging enemy ships in close combat. Jones became an invaluable asset to the rebellious American colonists in their fight for independence when he offered his services to the newly established Continental Navy. In a barely seaworthy ship, the Bonhomme Richard, named in honor of his benefactor Benjamin Franklin, Jones harassed and captured British ships and took cargoes desperately needed by the impoverished rebels. Sperry draws a full and brilliant portrait of America's first naval hero.

Profiles John Paul Jones, who served during the Revolutionary War and is credited with founding the United States Navy.