The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815 Review

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(More customer reviews)This volume continues the author's brilliant elucidation of the history of the British navy, so ably begun with The Safeguard of the Sea. The author addresses the navy as a multi-faceted institution, influencing and being influenced by the evolution of politics, taxation, government finance, trade and bureaucracy. Though focused upon the British navy, the book includes a collateral and comparative consideration of naval institutions in France, Spain and Holland.
The author serves up a generally savory mixture of impeccable scholarship and pungent opinion. Nevertheless, American readers may find distasteful his dismissive attitude toward the outcomes of the American Revolution (the "American War") and the War of 1812, and their implications for British naval policy.
Like its predecessor, this volume is chaptered by theme within broad time periods. The thematic structure facilitates the development of theses concerning social organization, finance and the like. The book also includes a Glossory (invaluable)and statistical appendices (valuable, but not priceless).
I await with interest a further volume in this series -- when the author will have to come to terms with the ascendancy of the United States Navy, and modify his thusfar appropriate Euro-centrism. Yankee pride aside, this is an absolutely marvelous book.

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Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War Review

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(More customer reviews)Mr. Barnett undertakes to describe the Royal Navy's operational history in World War II. To do this, he has to take up where World War I ended and the interwar years. He describes the budget cuts, wholesale decommissioning of ships, the subordination of the Fleet Air Arm and the neglect lavished on the RAF's Coastal Command. This book becomes, in certain areas, a work on Joint Warfare - the current rage in the United States, but not a new concept if one goes back and looks at Saunders and Wolfe in the French and Indian Wars and Grant and Foote in the Civil War.
This work is painstaking in it's detail. One may not agree with the conclusions of the author, but you will know how he arrived there. I found his arguements thought provoking and informative.
What one has in this work is a review, warts and all of the state of the Royal Navy from 1918 to 1945. The Royal Navy started to rearm in the 1930s but it was not always a well designed ship that went into service. The Tribal class with single purpose low angle main battery - fine for ship to ship combat but useless for engaging aircraft as would be shown in the Mediterranean and Norway. New aricraft carriers were commissioned but aircraft were obsolescent or hasty sea conversions of RAF aircraft such as Spitfires and Hurricanes. A poor choice of fire-control systems put ships are a disadvantage when engaging aircraft. In all, a very mixed picture. Barnett gives the failures and successes of the Royal Navy high visibility. He is balanced in his approach, not failing to describe positive aspects of failures and negative points in successes.
I found this an excellent all around history of the Royal Navy. It is very useful as an adjunct to the biographies of Royal Navy leaders and events. I recommend it for anyone with an interst in the Royal Navy.

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