Hero of the High Seas: John Paul Jones and the American Revolution Review

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(More customer reviews)" 'Criticizing and censuring almost every one you have to do with, will diminish friends, increase enemies, and thereby hurt your affairs.' "
--Benjamin Franklin's advice to John Paul Jones on getting along with others.

In Paris one hundred and one years ago, a crew of workers with picks and shovels entered a laundry in Paris and began digging in the basement. Back at the end of the eighteenth century the city had occupied a smaller area and where the laundry sat in 1905 was where a cemetery had, a century prior to then, been situated outside of town.

The planning phase of the operation had apparently been carried out with great skill, for the workers soon succeeded in unearthing what they were seeking: a heavy lead coffin filled with alcohol and the well-preserved body of American Revolution naval hero John Paul Jones.

Thanks to President Teddy Roosevelt's being an avid naval historian, John Paul Jones (or at least his pickled body) was belatedly returned to America with great ceremony and was buried in a handsome crypt at the US Naval Academy.

I, myself, knew nothing of substance about John Paul Jones and thus knew nothing of the significant naval aspects of the American Revolution. (Who knew there were significant naval aspects to the American Revolution? Even the rebellious colonists could be forgiven for not knowing, considering that, "The Continental Navy began with no warships, no men, and no money.")

But nevertheless, the quick-to-anger, full-of-himself John Paul Jones, who assumed the role of the squeaky wheel, succeeded in obtaining the rank he desired, the ships he needed, and proceeded to make such a nuisance of himself off the coast of Britain that the British had to devote some of their resources to protecting their own shoreline from the Scottish native turned American patriot.

John Paul, who first came to live in America in the aftermath of a dicey situation in which he killed a rebellious merchant sailor under his command, altered his name and arrived in the colony of Virginia just as the colonies were gearing up for War.

As Michael L. Cooper tells the tale of the Scottish gardener's son who became a revolutionary hero, the reader is treated to a wealth of action and gore on the high seas, along with a well-trimmed accounting of how Jones' life and career fit into the events preceeding, and events of, the American Revolution.

HERO OF THE HIGH SEAS could well serve as a model for the exemplary trade informational text that is appropriate for a diversity of readers. Within its 121 pages there are a wealth of primary source materials, an abundance of illustrations and graphics, and clear explanations of the ships, the War, and all aspects of the man. In those portions of the tale that could especially be of great interest to the young history aficionado, such as the frequently amusing communications by, and about, the scoundrel, err...I mean naval hero, the story never once bogs down in a manner that would cause the more reluctant readers to lose interest.

I picked up this book with no expectations that the life of John Paul Jones would be of interest to me. Thanks to Michael L. Cooper, I've soaked up an abundance of fascinating information about the life and times (and foibles) of this complex American revolutionary.



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