"Don't give up the ship," Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry said during the War of 1812.
Fellow Navy man David Porter did not heed the advice. But Porter is the man historian George Daughan chose to profile in his book The Shining Sea. The book gives us insights into the little-understood war that could have snuffed out the United States in its childhood, through the exploits of one of its boldest, and most hubris-laden, military figures.
