Commodore Levy: A Novel of Early America in the Age of Sail
This richly detailed historical novel closely follows the actual events of Levy's life: running away from his Philadelphia home to serve as a cabin boy at age ten; his service during the War of 1812 aboard the Argus and internment at the notorious British prison at Dartmoor; his campaign for the abolition of flogging in the Navy; and his purchase and restoration of Monticello as a tribute to his personal hero, Thomas Jefferson. Set against a broad panorama of U.S. history, Commodore Levy describes the American Jewish community from 1790 to 1860, the beginnings of the U.S. Navy, and the great nautical traditions of the Age of Sail before its surrender to the age of steam.
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What Uriah Levy achieved as a high-ranking Jewish officer in the United States Navy would have been remarkable if it had happened in 1945. The fact that it happened in the early 19th century is astounding -- and a testament to one ordinary man's extraordinary tenacity and courage. Commodore Levy achieves a kind of magic: this distant time and its people suddenly are alive, breathing beside us. The pages fly by, and with each page you feel a deepening sense of what it means, then and now, to live a life of integrity.
--Dara Horn, author of A Guide for the Perplexed
--Jonathan D. Sarna, author of When General Grant Expelled the Jews
Commodore Levy is a remarkable work of nautical fiction, a rousing story based on a real-life character: a great nineteenth century Jewish American naval officer, intelligent, skillful, and full of courage, but often harassed by his bigoted superiors because of his religion, who rises from a non-commissioned sailing master to the highest rank in the pre-Civil War U. S. Navy.
--Sanford Sternlicht, Commander USN-Ret., emeritus professor of English, Syracuse University
