Subtitled "A Sailor's Biography," this work by Samuel Eliot Morison paints the father of the US Navy as a complex, proud, enormously skilled tactician whose bravery and determination helped to secure the survival of the emerging American republic. (This despite the fact that the embryonic Navy had little role in the Revolution.) Born in Scotland and drawn to the sea at an early age, Jones led audacious attacks against the British coast, defeated a superior and faster ship in the Battle of Flamborough Head, and ended up working for Catherine II in the Black Sea fighting against the Turks. Morison's naval background skews the tale at times into the minutiae of sailing mechanics, but he also has plenty to say about Jones's love affairs, his relations with Ben Franklin (a friend) and assorted enemies, and his somewhat poignant end. Reading about an actual hero, warts and all, becomes an act of self-preservation in times of national collapse. And remember Jones's cry: I have not yet begun to fight!
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