Product Description

This stunning collection of over 170 large-format colour illustrations includes paintings of ships at sea, in action, in convoy, and in siege; architectural drawings; battle diagrams; sea charts and signals; portraits of leading figures in naval history; and details of guns, sails, and life below deck. Taken from contemporary sources, they range from the Seven Years' War to the American Civil War. The book focuses on the navies of all the major Atlantic sea powers of the time, including Britain, America, France, Holland, Sweden and Russia. Arranged in chronological order, each illustration is accompanied by an extended caption that adds to this visual feast a compelling history of naval warfare in the last great age of sail. This volume is divided into eight chapters: The Seven Years' War 1755-62; The Napoleonic Wars 1803-15; The War of American Independence 1775-1783; The War of 1812; The Years of Exploration c.1770-1794; The Last Days of Sail; The French Revolutionary Wars 1792-1802; and Steam and Iron.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25084 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

About the Author
Sam Willis was awarded a PhD in Naval History for his thesis on Command and Tactics in the 18th-century Navy. He has lectured at Bristol University and at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and consults on maritime painting for Christie's. Sam spent eighteen months as a Square Rig Able Seaman, sailing the tall ships used in the Hornblower television series and Channel 4's award-winning film Shackleton, and is a consultant to the BBC's Coast. He is the author of Fighting at Sea in the Eighteenth Century: The Art of Sailing Warfare and is writing a second volume in this Fighting Ships series, covering 1850-1950.N. A. M. Rodger is Professor of Naval History at the University of Exeter. He is the author of numerous books including The Wooden World, The Admiralty, The Safeguard of the Sea and Command of the Ocean

Customer Reviews

beautifully done work!


This is a massive and elegant work that is part art history, part naval history. Before you buy it--look at the dimensions (I had not done that). 90% of the 225 pages consists of art (the rest is narrative). You expect to see old paintings of naval battles, and you certainly get lots of those, all in full color. You also get lots of portraits of admirals, captains, etc, paintings and drawings of life below decks, contemporary maps of battles and harbors, architectural drawings of ship plans, paintings of navy yards and ships under construction.

The book illustrates a wide variety of naval activities--from the loss of the Royal George to shipwrecks to recovery efforts. The title is a bit of a misnomer--not everything here involves fighting ships. There is, for example, a painting of the Terror (a former bomb vessel) trapped in the ice of Hudson's bay in 1837. A delightful book indeed!

A real deep-sea treasure of a book
Immensely readable,lively,interesting and beautifully produced. A magnificent book to keep for the sheer pleasure of turning the pages to see one superb illustration after another, with text that is equally accessible for the novice and the expert. Historically well researched and full of intriguing details, this is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in ships or warfare at sea. Fantastically good value.

magnificent
This is a book of pictures of naval ships from 1750 to 1850.

The format is alternating pages of text and pictures. The text supporting the following picture. The text is informative and splendidly readable but forget about that, thats not really important.

This book weighs a freaking shedload. Its massive. Its awesomely gigantically massive. About 16" tall and its cover is made out of depleted uranium or something. It nearly breaks my coffee table.

The Pictures are mostly contempory to the period and sketches or paintings.Each one is pourable over for hours, turn the page and theres another one. Only better.

If you love fighting sale, then grab this book for a bargin price. There simply is no reason for you not to own it. Each minuite you lack it,will dull your life.