Mixing fascinating details with penetrating insights, this is easily the best book about the Royal Navy in the second half of the Cold War. It is a must for anyone interested in modern British naval policy.
During the period covered by this new book the Royal Navy faced some of its greatest challenges, both at sea confronting the increasingly capable and impressive Soviet Navy, and on shore when it faced policy crises that threatened the survival of much of the fleet. During this remarkable period, the Navy had rarely been so focussed on a single theatre of war - the Eastern Atlantic - but also rarely so politically vulnerable.
The author sets out to analyse shadowing operations and confrontations at sea with Soviet ships and submarines; the Navy's role in the enormous NATO and Warsaw Pact…
The setting is compelling, the characters engaging, and the plot rapid and unpredictable. It is hard to put down because one cannot easily predict what will come next, but one always wants to know. I am looking forward to the sequel.
At the elite Catenan Academy, where students are prepared as the future leaders of the Hierarchy empire, the curriculum reveals a layered set of mysteries which turn murderous in this new fantasy by bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.
Vis, the adopted son of Magnus Quintus Ulcisor, a prominent senator within the Hierarchy, is trained to enter the famed Catenan Academy to help Ulciscor learn what the hidden agenda is of the remote island academy. Secretly, he also wants Vis to discover what happed to his brother who died at the academy. He's sure the current Principalis of…
Creating a synthesis from all the scholarship on Britain and the Royal Navy across the span of 130 years is a formidable task, but this book surmounts this difficult job with aplomb. One does not have to agree with every judgement or idea to admire the skill with which the story is told and the narrative weaved. It is a first rate account of an important topic in Britain's history.
Across two acclaimed volumes, preeminent naval historian N. A. M. Rodger has traced the progress of naval warfare in Britain from the seventh century through to Trafalgar, combining decades of scholarship with original insights and analysis. In this final volume, Rodger links naval history with economic, political, and social history to demonstrate how naval warfare and the Royal Navy shaped the British state and society in the nineteenth and twentieth century. His comprehensive narrative goes beyond the conduct of war at sea to tell a sprawling story of naval warfare as a national endeavor. Along the way, he describes the…
The book is built around a quotation often attributed to Winston Churchill that depicted naval life as consisting of “Rum, Sodomy, Prayers and the Lash.” Churchill may not have said this, but it is a remarkable coincidence if he didn’t because, as the book shows, the Churchill Admiralty of 1911-1915 attempted to reform conditions in the Royal Navy by introducing new measures respecting the spirit ration, homosexuality, religion, and corporal punishment. As such it opens up a new aspect of the career of Winston Churchill, who as First Lord did not just prepare the Royal Navy for war with Germany, he also attempted to reform social conditions in the senior service and bring it into the modern world.
