I listened to this on audio during recent car trips and generally enjoyed it. It emphasized just how dicey a thing the victory at Yorktown was since Washington had too coordinate getting the French fleet to the same place as the American and French armies, while at the same time having the major British army trapped between the two.
The part I'd never heard of before concerned the one individual that made it all possible, repeatedly ensuring that de Grasse's fleet - all of it - made it to the Chesapeake with all the necessary gold to pay Washington's army just enough to keep them in line through the siege. King Carlos III sent Don Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis, a soldier originally trained as a doctor, to assist in prosecuting Spain's interests against Britain in the West Indies. Saavedra assisted General Matías Gálvez in organizing his army for his campaign in Florida, including the Siege of Pensacola.
He then met with French Admiral de Grasse in St Domingue, and together they put together a three-part plan that is known as the de Grasse/Saavedra Accord. (After ratification in Paris and Madrid it was referred to as the Grasse/Saavedra Convention.) The goals of the Accord were "to aid the Anglo- Americans powerfully, in such a way that the English cabinet would, in the end, lose the hope of subduing them; to take possession of various points in the Windward Islands, where the English fleets lying in protected forts were threatening French and Spanish possessions; and to conquer Jamaica, the center of the wealth and power of Great Britain in that part of the world."
He made sure de Grasse actually sailed for American, that he didn't weaken his fleet by leaving ships behind to escort merchant ships, and that he had the money to operate effectively in America when he got there - including the gold to allow Washington to provide some payments to his troops. He couldn't get this from French planters in Cap Francais as he'd planned, but he told de Grasse to sail anyway and he'd get the money somehow. Which he did, as a loan from the private citizens of Havana.
It was a great story, and one I had never heard before. But beyond question, we owe our independence to this doctor turned diplomat who wouldn't take no for an answer.