The Shores of Tripoli: Lieutenant Putnam and the Barbary Pirates (2016) By James L. Haley

Unless you have a degree in American History hanging on your wall, the period between the Revolution and the Civil War is likely to be a blur – covered in a chapter, maybe three, in any history class you were required to take – although, you might know about Dolly Madison taking the portrait of George Washington out of the White House as the British arsonists closed in.  Author James Haley has taken on the task of filling in part of that blank space with a two-volume work of historical fiction, the first of which covers the war against the Barbary Pirates, the war that gave the U.S. Marine Corps hymn the line “to the Shores of Tripoli.”

Haley has created the character Bliven Putman, a young farmer living in Massachusetts who joins the fledging U.S. Navy in 1801, at the time a rag tag group of ships barely able to put boats to sea as training boats, rather on mount a war in the Mediterranean Sea.  His career in the Navy is an adventure story that gives us an understandable and exciting how-to (and how not-to) lesson on building and staffing a Navy.  Plus, he’ll participate in sea battles and also the legendary, though aborted, desert march on Tripoli, Libya, providing him (and us) a bitter lesson in the workings of international diplomacy, as shaped by domestic politics.

The book touches on many topics – the budding abolitionist movement, political battles between Madison and Jefferson, religious puritanism and antisemitism at home.

A second major character in the book is Sam Bandy, also a new recruit – while Putnam is the representation of the northern states, Bandy, a plantation owner’s son is the stand in for the South. Their respective reactions to meeting a black man named Jonah, who serves as the chamberlain to the dey (Ottoman Regent) of Algiers, are interesting, busting multiple stereotypes.  Jonah, once a slave on a plantation in Virginia, speaks fluent English & Arabic, and is obviously better educated than either of them.

 

Throughout the war with the Barbary Pirates, the U.S. Navy is constantly bumping into elements of the much larger and stronger British Navy, which display arrogance and commit acts that are just short of belligerent.  Detailing these interactions is the lead-in to the next volume of this “Bliven Putnam Adventure” series, which will cover the War of 1812, a book now on my reading list.

Recommendation:  Yes.  It's a totally fun adventure book with a dose of American history thrown in.