Customer Reviews

Sovereigns of the Sea: The Quest to Build the Perfect Renaissance Battleship

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This book is a great introduction to the early history of fighting ships armed with gunpowder weapons. It starts at the dawn of gunpowder artillery and ends with the first real Ship of the Line, Sovereign of the Seas.

It has enough technical details to please anyone who is already interested in maritime history while being very understandable and entertaining for the general reader.

Angus Konstam's book, Sovereigns of the Sea proves to be a great book on the evolution of warship building in northern Europe. Much of the book centered around the arms race between England, Netherlands and Spain during the 16th century with France thrown in here and there. It is interesting to note how Europeans' quest for larger, superior warships during the 16th century will remind some readers of the same mentality of the European powers prior to World War I.

However, one of the more interesting chapters turned out to be Scotland's King James IV's bid for naval supremacy when they built the Michael, the most powerful warship of her times when built. This impressive ship ate up over half of Scotland's budget when it was built and it barely saw combat. And she was surpassed quickly by ships from England and other nations. However, it was interesting to read that for a brief moment in the sun, Scotland was a naval power to be reckon with even if it was just for show.

The book also traced how the flush built designs from the Mediterranean influence the ship building in northern Europe. How usage of gun powder and cannons made these ships a true instrument of war instead of just armed transports of the medieval period.

The book does go into some details of famous ships like the Mary Rose and the Swedish Vasa, both ships that is currently on display in their respective nations today. The book ends when England built their Sovereign of the Sea, Europe's first true modern ship of the line during the reign of Charles I, a ship according to the author, that was good enough to sail in the line of battle with Nelson at Trafalgar.

The book come highly recommended for anyone interested in naval history and development of warships.

`The Quest to Build the Perfect Renaissance Battleship'--It was that statement in the title of Angus Konstam's book which aroused my curiosity and made me want to read it. I knew very little about the ships of that era.

In today's world battleships consist of such gigantic craft as 30,000 ton aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers, frigates, and patrol boats with diesel and gas turbine propulsion in CODOG, CODAG and COGAG configurations; with sprint speeds of over 40 knots. Warships with hulls made of welded steel and fibreglass--with sophisticated computer-operated weapons systems and helipads. What an extraordinary change from those wooden hulls, tall-masted, ornate seafaring battleships of the 14th through the 17th centuries. And yet, Mr. Konstam writes, "they created and ruined empires, changed the map of the world, and led Europe out of the Renaissance into the modern age."

When we think of the Renaissance, we tend to think of the intellectual and artistic rebirth--of Donatello, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Copernicus and Galileo In fact it was also a period of almost constant wars, plundering and blood-letting; piracy--legal and illegal. The concept that control of the seas is crucial to the survival of nations was formed during Renaissance. It directly led to a race to build the biggest, most powerful, most manoeuvrable battleships. .

Once I started reading `Sovereigns of the Seas', I literally could not put it down. It is a fascinating story, beautifully written, not only of the development of the Renaissance battleships, but of the history of Europe itself.


I highly recommend this book tor anyone interested in European history and in the art of shipbuilding.

This is a good example of history written at the popular level that does the synthesis that scholarly works so often avoid. What is put put together here is the progess in naval warfighting technology and the political context of the Renaissance in northern Europe. This is very well done though neither subject by itself recieves a definitive treatment. The useful bibliography points out where else to go to futher explore each subject.
The organization of the book is essentially chronological but covers different countries topically. It can be said to be somewhat anglocentric but reasonably so given the author's background and it is certainly even handed in tone and judgement. Character sketches are well done and are neither unreasonably biased or excessively neutral. The treatment of technology is at the descriptive level but clearly done on the basis of a profound knowledge of the subject matter.
Although the book is well illustrated with historical prints, the illustrations are not numbered or referenced in the text for which I blame the editor at Wiley. In addtion it would have been nice in a number of places to have had new illustrations made with words and leaders to match the descriptions in the text. This is particularly the case in description of the guns of the period.
In any case, this is the kind of book that leaves you more interested than before and wanting to learn more.