Product Description

In the wars of modern history, maritime powers have always prevailed over land-based empires, whether Hapsburg, Napoleonic, Nazi or Soviet. This work charts the growth of linked strengths - fighting, trading, financial and constitutional - that made them so formidable.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135530 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 340 pages

Review
"Compelling--a work of stunning originality." - "Sunday Times

"An original and illuminating book." - Ludovic Kennedy, "Daily Telegraph

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended
An excellent and well written book, giving a broad view of the linkages between commerce, political openness and maritime power from the 16th to th 18th centuries.

Unsuccessful Hybrid
"Maritime Supremacy And The Opening Of The Western Mind" is a book that fails, although it fails for a "noble" reason: the author is overly ambitious. Mr. Padfield didn't want to write just a political/social history of the maritime powers and he didn't want to write just a naval history, either. He wanted to combine the two types of history. He also wanted to compare and contrast the maritime powers and the continental powers. Although there is certainly nothing wrong with this idea, the execution, in this case, is poor. Rather than weaving all the material together, the author alternates chapters on naval campaigns with chapters on political/social developments in Spain, France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Colonial America. This "alternating current" constantly disrupts the flow of the book: just as you have settled down to concentrate on a sea battle, the author switches to a chapter on political infighting or government financing. The problem also develops the other way around: just when you've gotten your mind set on concentrating on Lord North or William Pitt or tax-farming in pre-Revolutionary France, it's time to read about broadsides and officers pacing the decks of ships, show buckle deep in blood. As a result, the reader feels disconcerted: you are never comfortable and you can never get "caught-up" in the narrative. Another problem with the book is that, considering what the author wants to accomplish, it is too short. Mr. Padfield tries to cover approximately ten naval campaigns, while also trying to explain political/economic/social developments in five different geographical areas, covering a span of 200 years. This is just too much material to cover in less than 300 pages. The specialist reader is likely to come away feeling he or she hasn't learned anything new- as everything is presented in such broad strokes. The general reader will likely be confused by the pace and the amount of information. In trying to do too much, the book accomplishes too little. Perhaps the best that can be said of this book is that, for the non-specialist reader, it may open your eyes to a particular naval campaign or to political/economic/social developments in a particular country. For example, the chapter on the Spanish Armada might lead you to read a more comprehensive book on the topic, such as David Howarth's "The Voyage Of The Armada" or the chapter on the Dutch Golden Age could lead you to Simon Schama's wonderful "The Embarrassment Of Riches". However, I don't think that's a good enough reason to read this book, which is why I have given it only two stars.

Naval History
I've been reading naval history books for the past 40 years but Padfield gets down to not just the strategic/tactical element but also how that ties in with the political/economic element of the countries involved. Brilliant.
I'd also recomend Marder's 'From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow' 6 volumes I think for you really Naval buffs.