Naval Warfare: An Illustrated History

by Richard Humble

Sea power has had a profound effect on the history of the world through its influence in the rise and fall of nations. It is won and maintained by ships, by seamen, by the acceptance and use of the developing technology of the time and by prowess in battle, an amalgam of human courage and leadership. The despatch of the British task force to the Falklands as recently as 1982 served to highlight the continuing importance of conventional naval power even in this nuclear age. This is a book about naval warfare which deals with the significant campaigns of naval history, the decisive battles in those campaigns and includes biographical sketches of the principal naval leaders who directed and fought those battles. These are linked together with penetrating introductions to each new era of naval evolution, explaining the changes wrought in strategy and tactics by the development of new naval technology.

Genres: Military History, Naval History

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Richard Humble read Military History at Oriel College, Oxford. Now retired after 17 years as a Prison Teacher, he is a published author of 44 books on history for both adult and children's readership.

Reviews

[Mel Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book talks about the transition of Naval warfare, from the trirene and quinquirenes of the Greek and Roman periods to the Ironclad and Battleships of the Twentieth Century. Richard Humble exquisitely portrays each period of human history with very detailed descriptions of the ships, designs, strategies and the men who operated them.

The battles and the transitions from periods were greatly elaborated but somehow the author has failed to take into consideration the other navies, commanders and events that contributed to the entirety of Naval Warfare such as the Arab-Byzantine sea battles, Roman sea battles, Turkish corsairs, European Pirates, Crusade naval operations, the French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, American, Chinese,German, Korean, Japanese and Russian navies were greatly left out of this book. This was mainly an English dominated book, glorifying the victories and the various admirals and captains that served under the Royal Navy.

Though there are clearly a wide array of shortcomings of the book, errors aside I would still recommend it because this book gives a very detailed account of the changes in naval warfare whether it be weaponry, tactics or design everything is here.

[Robert Hund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Checked out from the Point aux Barques library on vacation in August 2000.

Evolutio of modern fleet - submatirnes, battleships, carriers. Good