Customer Reviews

Britain As A Military Power, 1688-1815

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Jeremy Black's works are often thought provoking if not very carefully researched or documented. I own many of his books and reference them often, and to a point they are useful. However, this is definately an author whose reputation exceeds his accomplishments. He is very much a generalist and will be the backshelf J.C. Fuller or A.J.P. Taylor in a moldy used bookstore for $1.25 a decade from now. He turns out books faster than most professors turn out lectures, and the quantity is usually gained at a cost to quality. I have paid as much as $35.00 for paperback editions of some of his previous works because I needed to reference them and address his arguements in my historiographical discussions, but nothing he has ever written, including this (which I thankfully accessed via interlibrary loan) merits such an obnoxious price. Save your pounds stirling. If you have no choice but to buy this--I am sorry for you. The Kindle price (or for that matter rental) here is also obscene. I think if the Duke of Marlborough coauthored a work with the Duke of Wellington on the British Army, I wouldn't pay this kind of money for it. The pomposity of the price, however, goes well with the "We were once the greatest" Anglocentric tone of Black's previous work--so at least in that respect it is appropriate.

Jeremy Black provides an excellent discussion of Britain's land and naval power, discussing the nation's strengths and weaknesses and the many wars and diplomatic crises of the period. Black convincing argues that Britain's rise to power was not preordained and cites a number of potential disasters. Although a great strength, Britain's financial system was also a vulnerability. Use of mercenaries and subsidy treaties was also a double edged sword, and the Jacobites were always a real threat to the regime. Refreshingly, he covers interesting but now obscure events like the 1770s Falklands squabble and the Nootka Sound incident, but his accounts of wars in India are a little confusing.