Yikes. Thanks for the review. That's a book to avoid then.

Have you read Frank Lamberts' "The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World" or Richard Zacks' "The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, The First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805" or Ian W. Toll's "Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U. S. Navy"? All three of these keep popping up on my radar in connection with this particular topic. (Kilmeade so far hasn't -- and is unlikely to get any sustained attention if he should.)