Product Description

Freedom of expression and individual enterprise flowing from merchant imperatives have distinguished the societies of powers dominant at sea; and since supreme maritime nations have prevailed over their territorial rivals in the great wars of the modern era, it is they who have created today’s world. In this final volume of his maritime series, Peter Padfield carries the theme through the terrible wars of the last century to the present day, reaching controversial and unpalatable conclusions.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146144 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Review

Praise for the earlier volumes in the trilogy
‘The best naval historian of his generation’

 

(John Keegan )

‘If the author had confined his study to the “ships, weapons, tactics and strategies with which the maritime powers overcame their territorial opponents”, the result would have been impressive . . . But by also analysing the effect that trade and naval supremacy had on government and society, he has produced a work of stunning originality’

(Saul David, Sunday Times )

‘Those ready for an adult education in the history of war will be satisfied and those just wanting a good read enthralled . . . On naval warfare Padfield is masterly’

(Tom Pocock, Literary Review )

‘Excellent trilogy’

(Good Book Guide )

‘Exceptional author ... there will not be a better book on Britain’s naval campaigns’

(Oxford Times )

About the Author

Peter Padfield was born in British India but educated in England. After service as a navigating officer in P&O liners to India and Australia, he sailed in the replica seventeenth-century bark, Mayflower II, on her recreation of the Pilgrim Fathers’ voyage. Subsequently he worked a passage to the Pacific and sailed local craft in the Solomon Islands. He has since made his name as a naval historian. The second volume of this present trilogy earned him the Mountbatten Maritime Prize.