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The Nation and the Navy: A History of Naval Life and Policy
314 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1954
About the author
Christopher Lloyd
31 books3 followersCharles Christopher Lloyd
British naval historian; authored/edited 91 works in 549 publications in 3 languages.
https://www.worldcat.org/identities/l...
British naval historian; authored/edited 91 works in 549 publications in 3 languages.
https://www.worldcat.org/identities/l...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 30, 2022
I happened across this book in a restaurant as I was waiting for someone to arrive for lunch. I was quite taken by it, so I bought the book from the restaurant. They couldn't quite see why I would want it, but I stumbled across the book as I was reading William Bernstein's book on the history of trade. The two complement each other very nicely.
This book would struggle in a modern world. It covers the development of the Royal Navy from the Tudor Age through to the end of the First World War. Following Bernstein's pattern, it's a tale of raid, trade, and colonise. The first (and foremost) naval role was the protection of trade routes used by the English, and then British, merchant marine. In this time, Britannia came to rule the waves. Lloyd is rather proud of this, which is where he may fall out of favour with modern readers.
He tells of how the Navy protected the growth of trade in the Eighteenth Century, including the rise of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. He makes few apologies for this. It was a commercial transaction undertaken on commercial terms. And when the Trans-Atlantic slave trace was abolished and outlawed, the Royal Navy played an instrumental part in wiping it out. This is very much a value free analysis of what was and not of what should have been.
Of course, in the Nineteenth Century, the Trans-Atlantic trade was supplanted by the pan-Asian trade. This naturally included the forcing of opium from India upon the Chinese Empire. Once again, the analysis is fairly dispassionate. He simply describes what he believed to have happened. It does beg the question of how much weight we can place upon his words? However, I'm not the right person to assess this owing to my lack of knowledge.
I was attracted to the book because it offers a fairly straightforward account of the rise of British sea power. It touches upon it's fall, but not by much. It's an area of history that I have little knowledge of, and an area of warfare where I have even less knowledge. It is only late in the day that I am attempting to redress that balance.
This book would struggle in a modern world. It covers the development of the Royal Navy from the Tudor Age through to the end of the First World War. Following Bernstein's pattern, it's a tale of raid, trade, and colonise. The first (and foremost) naval role was the protection of trade routes used by the English, and then British, merchant marine. In this time, Britannia came to rule the waves. Lloyd is rather proud of this, which is where he may fall out of favour with modern readers.
He tells of how the Navy protected the growth of trade in the Eighteenth Century, including the rise of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. He makes few apologies for this. It was a commercial transaction undertaken on commercial terms. And when the Trans-Atlantic slave trace was abolished and outlawed, the Royal Navy played an instrumental part in wiping it out. This is very much a value free analysis of what was and not of what should have been.
Of course, in the Nineteenth Century, the Trans-Atlantic trade was supplanted by the pan-Asian trade. This naturally included the forcing of opium from India upon the Chinese Empire. Once again, the analysis is fairly dispassionate. He simply describes what he believed to have happened. It does beg the question of how much weight we can place upon his words? However, I'm not the right person to assess this owing to my lack of knowledge.
I was attracted to the book because it offers a fairly straightforward account of the rise of British sea power. It touches upon it's fall, but not by much. It's an area of history that I have little knowledge of, and an area of warfare where I have even less knowledge. It is only late in the day that I am attempting to redress that balance.
Displaying 1 of 1 review