The most recommended naval history books

Hornblower is a fantastic character, and the entire series is worth a read, but C.S. Forester got more accomplished throughout the series. Meticulously researched - and recently wildly popular, thanks to a TV series - the books are still much deeper, more resonant, and better!! Hornblower is in constant turmoil, too sensitive for his own good or for the crises every Admiral probably had to face, he is also so self-conscious that even in love - and he is very passionate - he can't quite let go. Combine that with a number of vivid females and still more interesting fellow officers - all with their own crosses to bear - and the Napoleonic war on the seas and... could not have been written better.

The battle for Mauritius (Isle de France) is the central conflict in this history, pitting Nelson’s navy against Napoleon’s. At stake is the trade route between Britain and India via the Cape of Good Hope, and the spoils will accrue to whoever gains control of this conduit. A good primer on the behavior of different social classes crammed in proximity over 9-month voyages; on the sea battles involving giant East Indiamen sailing ships and smaller man o’ war frigates: their tactics, the damages suffered, and the fates of the poor sailors whether for insubordination or bravery. Today’s corporate battles do not shed blood, but the imperatives of first mover advantage, competitive might, and greed are still there—colonial business legacies—even if demonstrated now only in a boardroom. 

A lot of the fiction and non-fiction around the Age of Sail and the Georgian navy focuses on the officers and the larger battles, so this book, discussing the lives of ordinary sailors, is very refreshing.

I read it for research for my own writing and really enjoyed the excerpts from the letters and other documents of the diverse groups of men (and women) who sailed on the ships of the line.

There is an intimacy there of seeing how these various stories and lives played out against the backdrop of wider events and political issues. It is something I always bear in mind while writing my own (fictional) narratives. 

What could be cooler than underwater archaeology? This book tells the incredible story of how Mongol emperor Kublai Khan attempted to conquer Japan, not once, but twice in the late twelfth century. Both invasions were unsuccessful, and Kublai’s second fleet was sunk by a “divine wind” or kamikaze in the waters off Kyushu island in western Japan—only to be rediscovered in modern times by underwater archaeologists.

This is the 3rd book in the Aubrey Maturin series written now some 50 years ago. It has not aged at all.

Primarily set in Asia, it relates some of the most compelling stories of naval action I have ever read, while telling us so much about people and place. I read the whole cycle of the 20 completed novels every year. I do this for many reasons – not least of which is the sheer quality of the writing, and the fantastic sense O’Brien gives of life in the British Navy (the wooden world) at a crucial period in its history.

This was the Navy of Britain’s dominance of the globe through sea power – a dominance that affected so many aspects of our lives since then. It's always fun to rediscover the origins of so many English sayings such as To Toe the Line, and By and Large.… show more.

An old army buddy of mine used to say that when he had trouble at work and was worried about being able to support his family and when life was beginning to be a little too much, he would pick up a copy of The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna. Soon, he’d be transported to the deck of the USS San Pablo, during the 1920s, steaming up the Yangtze River in the heart of China and suddenly everything was right.

McKenna was a sailor in the US Navy for 22 years (1931 to 1953). He enlisted at the age of 18 and was assigned to the “China fleet,” patrolling largely between Guam, Okinawa, and Japan. He served through World War II and the Korean War. After finally retiring, he went to school on the GI Bill and started to write. His first and only novel was The Sand Pebbles,… show more.

While doing research on the British campaign to end the slave trade, I read many books, but no book transported me to the decks of the slave ships and to the rugged coast of Africa like Sweet Water and Bitter. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade is placed in its historical, military, and economic context, but Siân Rees also shows the human side of the story. On every page, there is another amazing/shocking/heartbreaking/inspiring vignette. You meet the sailors and missionaries who fought to smother the slave trade, often at the cost of their lives. The hopes and hardships of life in Africa are expressed by emancipated slaves, naval officers, and ordinary seamen. Rees' prose is clear and even-handed. My paperback copy is bristling with little post-it notes.

Barry Strauss is among the best writers ever to address the history of ancient Greece and Rome. In this exciting book, Strauss retells the great battle of Salamis – the naval battle that turned the tide of the Greek-Persian wars of the early fifth century BCE and inaugurated the Athenian Golden Age. He does so through the eyes of a wide range of those who participated in the battle – on both sides. This is military history that attends closely to the human element, and that reminds us that at various points in the past, the future of the world hung in the balance – and that the result was never foreordained. 

This non-fiction book about the mutiny on HMS Hermione was a massive inspiration behind Leeward which features a fictional mutiny in the Caribbean.

I read it after listening to a podcast featuring Angus Konstam and was instantly hooked. The historical events were shocking and brutal and had far-reaching political consequences at the time. Angus Konstam describes them so cinematically and with such intriguing historical detail that I absolutely devoured the book.

I became immersed in my own research and started imagining what it would have been like on those ships – both the Hermione and the Surprise which hunted her down. 

I remember taking a charter fishing boat out from Beaufort Inlet when they found the Queen Anne's Revenge back in 1996, the flagship of the legendary Blackbeard, who was killed off Ocracoke Island in 1718. I also remember visiting Springer's Point and paddling “Teach's Hole” on the island, not to mention searching for his alleged treasure both there and at the site of his former home in Bath, N.C.

I have also visited White Point Gardens in Charleston, where Stede Bonnett and crew were hanged, and kayaked along the many sounds and inlets where these buccaneers used to plunder and pillage. From the time that I was a child, I have been enchanted with pirate culture, and this book offers historical accuracy that you can't find by watching Johnny Depp in the theater.