Here are 100 books that The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 fans have personally recommended if you like
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783.
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I am a Professor Emeritus of History at the United States Naval Academy, where I taught for thirty years, including a four-year term as History Department Chair. I was the first person to win both the Naval Academy’s Teacher of the Year award (1988) and its Researcher of the Year award (1998). I received the Navy Meritorious Service Award in 1989 and the Superior Civilian Service medal four times. In 1994-95, I was a Professor of Strategy at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England. After retirement, I returned to the Naval Academy in 2012 as The Class of 1957 Distinguished Professor of Naval History.
The Second World War marked the apogee of American naval power, and there are many wonderful books about it, especially about the Pacific War. One of the many such books is James D. Hornfisher’s book, which is a dramatic telling of the furious engagement off the island of Samar during the Battle for Leyte Gulf in 1944 when a small group of destroyers stood up to a Japanese battleship-cruiser force.
“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”
With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire. All that stood between it and Douglas MacArthur’ s vulnerable invasion force were the Roberts and the other small ships of a tiny American…
I am a Professor Emeritus of History at the United States Naval Academy, where I taught for thirty years, including a four-year term as History Department Chair. I was the first person to win both the Naval Academy’s Teacher of the Year award (1988) and its Researcher of the Year award (1998). I received the Navy Meritorious Service Award in 1989 and the Superior Civilian Service medal four times. In 1994-95, I was a Professor of Strategy at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England. After retirement, I returned to the Naval Academy in 2012 as The Class of 1957 Distinguished Professor of Naval History.
For a broader perspective on the war in the Pacific, you cannot do better than Ian Toll's trilogy, beginning with Pacific Crucible (2012), then The Conquering Tide (2015), and finally Twilight Of The Gods (2020). If I had to pick one of these, I would choose the last one, where Toll really hits his full stride as a historian and storyteller.
On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
Ian W. Toll's dramatic narrative encompasses both the high command and the "sailor's-eye" view from the lower deck. Relying predominantly…
I am a Professor Emeritus of History at the United States Naval Academy, where I taught for thirty years, including a four-year term as History Department Chair. I was the first person to win both the Naval Academy’s Teacher of the Year award (1988) and its Researcher of the Year award (1998). I received the Navy Meritorious Service Award in 1989 and the Superior Civilian Service medal four times. In 1994-95, I was a Professor of Strategy at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England. After retirement, I returned to the Naval Academy in 2012 as The Class of 1957 Distinguished Professor of Naval History.
In chronological order, I’ll start with this book (1882, modern reprint 1999) by Theodore Roosevelt. There are many excellent modern books about this conflict, but a reader cannot go wrong by turning to an early book on the subject by a young (22) Theodore Roosevelt. Begun as his senior thesis at Harvard, it remains in print today and breathes with the future president’s love of all things naval.
"The Naval War of 1812" is an insightful historical work written by Theodore Roosevelt, an esteemed American statesman, historian, and the 26th President of the United States. Published in 1882, this comprehensive book delves into the lesser-known aspects of the War of 1812, focusing specifically on the naval battles that shaped the conflict between the United States and Great Britain.
In this complete edition, Roosevelt meticulously examines the events leading up to the war, providing a detailed account of the political tensions, economic disputes, and maritime issues that ultimately culminated in the conflict. He masterfully explores the motivations and strategies…
I am a Professor Emeritus of History at the United States Naval Academy, where I taught for thirty years, including a four-year term as History Department Chair. I was the first person to win both the Naval Academy’s Teacher of the Year award (1988) and its Researcher of the Year award (1998). I received the Navy Meritorious Service Award in 1989 and the Superior Civilian Service medal four times. In 1994-95, I was a Professor of Strategy at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England. After retirement, I returned to the Naval Academy in 2012 as The Class of 1957 Distinguished Professor of Naval History.
The dean of American naval historians was Samuel Eliot Morison, who penned a remarkable number of books on the subject, including the 15-volume History Of Naval Operations In World War II. But among his best works is this biography that he wrote on Matthew Perry, which covers the years from the War of 1812 through the Civil War.
The younger brother of Oliver Hazard Perry of Lake Erie fame, Matthew Perry was a central player in the African Squadron, the War with Mexico, and the Opening of Japan.
A very good+ copy, clean, crisp, and unmarked, in a very good- dust jacket with some foxing and a few chips and tears. First edition. Cloth. 8vo. xxiii, 482 pp. Illus. with 75 b/w photos, drawings, and maps. The American Naval Officer who Helped Found Liberia, Hunted Pirates in the West Indies, Practised Diplomacy with the Sultan of Turkey and the King of the Two Sicilies Commanded the Gult Squadron in the Mexican War, Promoted the Steam Navy and the Shell Gun, and Conducted the Naval Expedition which Opened Japan.
I recently retired as a military and naval history professor at the University of Memphis, where I continue to teach strategy for the US Naval War College. I am the author of seven books and many articles on maritime and military history and the histories of technology and sexuality.
Alfred Thayer Mahan was the first modern scholar to seriously explore naval strategy. He discussed how strategy at sea differed from strategy on land, what naval power could and could not do, and the advantages of being a sea power like Great Britain as opposed to a land power like Russia or Germany.
Unfortunately, Mahan’s works, particularly his classic The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890), are ponderous and often difficult to read. Jon Sumida’s short book summarizes and explains Mahan’s key ideas, often better than Mahan himself, and underlines their enduring importance.
Between 1890 and 1913, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan published a series of books on naval warfare in the age of sail, which won a wide readership in his own day and established his reputation as the founder of modern strategic history. But Mahan's two principal arguments have been gravely misunderstood ever since, according to Jon Tetsuro Sumida. Instead of representing Mahan as an advocate of national naval supremacy, Sumida shows him asserting that only a multinational naval consortium could defend international trade. Instead of presenting Mahan as a man who adhered to strategic principles, Sumida shows that he stressed the…
For fifty years I've studied the British sailing navy, fascinated by its workings, the slow communications, the vagaries of the winds and tides. In parallel with my work in archives, I've sailed in most of the European waters described in Convoys. I worked at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for 27 years, leaving as Deputy Director in 2000. Since then, I've taught postgraduates and written about Nelson and the British government (Britain against Napoleon), and became convinced that Britain came very close to being defeated by Napoleonic France. If Napoleon had not thrown it all away by his invasion of Russia in 1812, I might be writing this in French, with a very different script!
It is an extraordinary fact that no one had written a book on the naval war after 1803 for nearly two hundred years.
In the same time period, hundreds of books have covered Trafalgar and Nelson, and some good books have appeared on parts of the war. But until James Davey’s extensive documentary research in this book, nobody had seen it as a whole. Engagingly written, full of telling stories, this tells the story of a worldwide war.
Battles, blockades, convoys, raids: how the indefatigable British Royal Navy ensured Napoleon's ultimate defeat
Horatio Nelson's celebrated victory over the French at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 presented Britain with an unprecedented command of the seas. Yet the Royal Navy's role in the struggle against Napoleonic France was far from over. This groundbreaking book asserts that, contrary to the accepted notion that the Battle of Trafalgar essentially completed the Navy's task, the war at sea actually intensified over the next decade, ceasing only with Napoleon's final surrender.
In this dramatic account of naval contributions between 1803 and 1815, James…
I wanted to go to the sea ever since I can remember. In the hope of having the nonsense knocked out of me, my father sent me at the tender age of fourteen to the ‘Indefatigable’, a tough sea-training school. This only strengthened my resolve for a life at sea, and I joined the Royal Navy at 15. My family emigrated and I transferred to the Royal Australian Navy and saw service around the world. Although I no longer have an active involvement with the navy, I sail in my imagination through my sea-faring novels.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy was the largest employer in the world. It maintained a fleet of close on 1,000 ships, including over 100 line-of-battle ships, and was responsible for the entire organisation of maintaining them at sea. Through his evocative selection of 100 objects Glover takes you back in time to share his admiration for a golden age when Britain ruled the seas.
The Royal Navy of Nelson's time was such a huge organisation, that it is sometimes hard to comprehend its full scope. Indeed, during the Napoleonic Wars it was by far the largest employer in the entire world.
Not only did the Royal Navy maintain a fleet of close on 1,000 ships, including over 100 line of battle ships, but it was also responsible for the entire organisation of maintaining them at sea. From the recruitment of crews, the maintenance and protection of bases throughout the world, the production and delivery of food supplies to feed this vast fleet and the…
I have a passion for ships and the sea which I try and bring to my writing. I was first drawn to the Age of Sail by earlier novelists in the genre who opened my eyes to a fascinating world. I went on to study the 18th-century navy at university, I sail myself whenever I can, and have always loved the sea. When I decided to give up a well-paid job in industry to try my hand as an author, there was only one genre for me.
This book is always on my desk when I am writing. Nick Rodger is the greatest living authority on the Age of Sail, with an astounding knowledge of his subject from the grand strategy of fleets down to the daily life of individual sailors. The book is a distillation of a lifetime of careful research into a highly-readable, single volume that lets the reader step through a door into a vanished world.
Meticulously researched, Rodger's portrait draws the reader into this fascinatingly complex world with vivid, entertaining characters and full details of life below the decks. The Wooden World provides the most complete history of a navy at any age, and is sure to be an indispensable volume for all fans of Patrick O'Brian, English history, and naval history.
I’m a writer of traditional Regency romances who would be happy to let everyone fight over Mr. Darcy while I sneak off with Captain Wentworth. If period dramas are dress-up for grown-ups, the best historical fiction is nothing less than a trip in a time machine, no Dramamine required. So if you’ve ever dreamed of being knocked over the head and waking up in a Jane Austen novel, you’re not alone. Come join me in one of my Regencies. I’ll save you a glass of ratafia.
As an author of Regency romances, I think of Forester’s Hornblowernovels as the guy-friendly equivalents, and I tried and tried to get my son to read these. Sigh. The series follows a Royal Navy man during the Napoleonic Wars, from his days as a lowly midshipman to his zenith as an admiral, and every last book in the series is so stinking good. Forester writes the most bang-up action scenes and has researched the heck out of everything, without ever bludgeoning you over the head with it. His characters are alive—flawed and fascinating and funny. In short, if this man weren’t dead for the last sixty years, I would marry him.
An important contribution to the economic literature, this book provides a systematic analysis of the problems of economic growth and stability presented by the changing role of energy in modern economics. The result of a massive study by the author of the effects of energy and energy shocks on the world economy, the volume is organized around the theme that energy is an integral feature of the economy and that any interpretation of short-term movements in economic activity is likely to be seriously at fault if it neglects energy supply changes and their repercussions. The author takes both an historical…
In a long international business career, I’ve survived military coups, a guerrilla war, storms at sea, life in mangrove swamps, tropical forest, offshore oil platforms, and boardrooms. My passion for nineteenth-century history, and my understanding of the cutting-edge technology of that time, have inspired the Dawlish Chronicles. The Royal Navy officer, Nicholas Dawlish, and Florence, the love of his life, are real people to me. The challenges they face are strongly linked to actual events both overseas and in Britain in the late 19th century and I know most of the settings from personal experience.
Marryat is known as the “Father or Naval Fiction” who established a genre that still flourishes. In 1806, at fourteen, he joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman. In the next nine years he saw service—and battle—against the French and American navies, at one stage under the command of the legendary frigate captain Thomas Cochrane. Marryat retired as a captain in 1830 to devote himself to writing. This novel is based on his own early years in the navy. It’s light in tone and very readable but there’s no sentimentality when he deals with losses and injury. One suspects that it reflects the gallows' humour that carried the navy through those long years. I’ve always loved it!
Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836) is a novel by Frederick Marryat. Inspired by the author's experience as a captain in the Royal Navy, Mr. Midshipman Easy is a tale of bravery, foolishness, and the manifold reasons for men to take to the high seas. Frequently funny, often profound, Marryat's novel is an underappreciated classic of nineteenth century fiction that has been adapted twice for British cinema.
"'Then, father, all I have to say is, that I swear by the rights of man I will not go back to school, and that I will go to sea. Who and what is to…
