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To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World (Hardcover)

by Arthur Herman (Author) "FOR THREE DAYS the ships had struggled to hold their own against the hurricane..." (more)
Key Phrases: modern battle cruisers, naval mastery, unrestricted submarine campaign, Royal Navy, West Indies, San Juan (more...)
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The author of How the Scots Invented the Modern World returns with this quite splendid history of the British Royal Navy. Probably to no one's surprise, his thesis is that the British Empire was the foundation of the modern world and the Royal Navy the foundation of that empire. By and large, he sustains that thesis in a fluent narrative that stretches from the Elizabethan Age to the Falklands War. Although definitely Anglocentric and navalist, the author has done his research on a scale that such a large topic (to say nothing of a large book) requires. The Royal Navy's discipline and food in the age of sail may not deserve quite as much rehabilitation as he gives them, but on the other hand, he is frank about the limitations of British warship design, poor Victorian gunnery and lack of preparations for antisubmarine warfare between the world wars. He also writes extremely well, whether dealing with the role of the Royal Navy in founding the British iron and steel industries (it was a major customer) or grand battles, such as Quiberon Bay (1759) or Trafalgar (1805). Good one-volume histories of one of the modern world's most vital fighting forces appear rarely; this one should rule for a while to come.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Unlike many of the great empires of the nineteenth century or those of antiquity, the British empire was not based upon contiguous territory. With their imperial possessions separated by vast oceans and large landmasses, it was essential for the British to develop and maintain a mighty navy to supply and exploit the empire's resources. Herman, who has been a professor of history and the coordinator of the Western Heritage Program at the Smithsonian, writes a stirring account of the origins and evolution of the British navy. He also presents convincing arguments that illustrate that many of the broad strategic goals pursued by the British continue to be pursued by American geopolitical strategists today. This is an exciting chronicle filled with colorful characters and enthralling adventures; some of these men, such as Francis Drake and James Cook, are already imperial icons, but Herman also relates stories and exploits of more obscure but equally compelling figures who helped establish and preserve the greatest maritime empire in history. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 672 pages
  • Publisher: HarperCollins (October 26, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0060534249
  • ISBN-13: 978-0060534240
  • Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #499,235 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
FOR THREE DAYS the ships had struggled to hold their own against the hurricane. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
modern battle cruisers, naval mastery, unrestricted submarine campaign, maritime supremacy, fighting admirals, wooden world, silver fleet, navy seamen, weather gauge
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Royal Navy, West Indies, San Juan, West Country, John Hawkins, Medina Sidonia, United States, Lord Admiral, Navy Board, Francis Drake, North Sea, Walter Raleigh, English Channel, East India Company, Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth, First Lord, John Dee, Mary Rose, South America, Indian Ocean, Prince of Wales, Horatio Nelson, North America, House of Commons
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57 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Should a professor of history make such basic mistakes or be so superficial?, September 26, 2005
By Strategos (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews
Impressed by the favorable reviews and interested by the sweep of the author's perspective, I bought "To Rule the Waves". Early in the book (page 54), however, I found this extraordinary sentence, "Once they (the Spanish ships) arrived off Hispaniola, the South American-bound section sailed to Cartagena (now the capital of Venezuela) to drop off goods and supplies,....". Perhaps Mr. Herman should look up an atlas and find out that the capital of Venezuela is Caracas, and Cartagena is in Colombia.

Hoping that this was simply an isolated case of sloppy writing and editing, I continued to read in the book. On page 282, I was startled by still another absurdity, "The British navy enabled Clive to beat his rival Dupleix at the battle of Plassey in 1757..". Really? How did he manage to do so, when: (i) Dupleix (the governor of the French colony at Pondicherry) had already been recalled in 1754; and, (ii) Clive fought the forces of a local Indian prince, the Nawab of Bengal (Siraj ud Daulah), at Plassey (in Bengal, nowhere near the battles in the Carnatic to which Mr. Herman refers) and there were no French troops in this battle? These are not complex questions of fact - Mr. Herman could easily refer to any standard history of India, or if he felt inclined to a bit more research, to more specialized histories of the rise of British power in India.

Apart from errors of fact, there are questions of judgment. Is it really accurate to refer to Napoleon at the relief of Toulon as a "committed terrorist"? What on earth does this mean? He had written one anti-Paoli essay,a piece of Jacobin propaganda, and met Robespierre. But he was inserted into a position in the French forces relieving Toulon by Saliceti, a "depute en mission", who knew the Bonapartes from Corsica. Perhaps Mr. Herman thinks of the Jacobins as the fore-runners of Al-Qaeda?

This book really could and should have been written better. It's useful to pick up the general thread of what happened in the rise and dominance of the Royal Navy over three centuries and more. But it's no substitute for the number of other works which do exist, about different periods, battles and themes which Mr. Herman tries to cover in his book. For an example of a superlatively well-written and recent book on just the Spanish armada, I would strongly recommend "In Confident Hope of a Miracle" by Neil Hanson, who doesn't have Mr. Herman's credentials as a professor of history, but apparently doesn't need them as he writes so much better and in greater depth.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Unfulfilled Promise, March 5, 2005
Arthur Herman's To Rule the Waves is a gallant attempt at a one-volume history of the Royal Navy and its impact on world history. Much of the narrative of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is extremely well done. He also offers such insightful observations as "It is only when we look backward that history assumes a predictable pattern. Viewed the other way around, as it is lived, it abounds in inexplicable turns and strange surprises."

It is, therefore, disappointing that such a fine book should be handicapped by numerous factual errors. Cartagena is not the capital of Venezuela. Napoleon's "crushing defeat" at Waterloo occurred on June 18, 1815 - not June 15. It is also difficult to accept the statement that the Battle of Trafalgar had all been for nothing, even "in a sense."

By the time the author reaches the twentieth century, one has the impression that he was running out of time or patience. The factual errors increase. The King George V class of battleships were not equipped with 16-inch guns to match the latest American and Japanese battleships. Unlike the Americans, the British had to proceed with the KGVs at an earlier date to address the German threat, and they given their unusual arrangement of ten 14-inch guns as a result. To be fair, the author does get the armament of this class of battleship correct later in his text. The Tribal class destroyer had a crew of between 190 and 226. The statement that Matabele was sunk with the loss of all but two of her crew of 4,000 is wildly inaccurate. The ship that assisted Duke of York in the sinking of the Scharnhorst, was the light cruiser Jamaica. This ship is incorrectly described by the author as a destroyer. Admiral Halsey did not participate actively in the Battle of Midway. Spruance and Fletcher executed the plans Nimitz had approved. The Cunard liner that was pressed into service as a troop carrier during the Falklands operation was the QE2. I do not believe that Canberra was ever a Cunarder.

These numerous factual errors inevitably lead the reader to wonder whether there are others that may have escaped attention during a first reading. The fault may be attributable to sloppy research or sloppy editing, but it is there all the same. Moving beyond the realm of fact to that of analysis, I am willing to give anyone the right to his or her opinion, but to suggest that if the Japanese had not sunk Prince of Wales and Repulse in 1941 there might not have been a Vietnam War is simply too much of a stretch for me.
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29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Tale of Seagoing Technology and Human Enterprise, January 10, 2005
This is a thoroughgoing and insightful survey of the growth (and the importance of that growth) of British seapower, from its earliest stirrings in the reign of Henry VIII, through its birth on the high seas as an annoying competitor to the Spanish and Portugese for the African slave trade (with not a little piracy thrown in) during Elizabeth I's reign right up to the present. It covers tremendous ground while offering a sometimes microscopic look into the technologies and lifestyles of Britain's seafarers over the centuries.

What jumps right out at you from the beginning is how deeply the Royal Navy which, in the nineteenth century, could justly claim to "rule the waves," is itself rooted in lawlessness, brutality and the greed of the pirate. Yet Herman keeps it all in perspective and shows us how a better way of thinking, a philosophy of fairness enforced, grew out of this, alongside the gradual increase in British seapower.

After a number of false starts and lucky breaks, including successfully (but just barely) avoiding an invasion by a clumsy Spanish admiral and his inattentive monarch, the Elizabethan English were granted a reprieve during which to grow their seafaring prowess. They did this by partly living off the powerful but sluggish annual seagoing tribute caravan called "La Flota" which kept the Spaniards afloat in gold and silver. But the Spanish King Philip, a micromanager of the worst sort, also seemed to lack a head for finances. He mortgaged his nation ever more deeply into debt as English piracy grew and, eventually, began to take the gold and silver from his galleons before he and his successors could. The result: Spain's fleet stagnated and declined and her ever more ossified civil system fell into decay. Not so the up and coming English.

As Spain declined, other seafaring nations waded in to take her place, including the former Spanish dependency, Holland which briefly gave England a run for its money. But the Dutch lacked the resources to keep pace with the English who began to transition from piracy to more staid pursuits. As trade and commerce replaced brigandage, England struggled to protect its ever growing position in a series of wars. When the Dutch faded, France was ready to step in. And France was a more substantial threat to England, the sort that would force the English to finally develop a real navy.

But the autocratic French system did not transfer well to the sea, while the initiative and out-of-the-box thinking of piracy and smuggling had bred into England's sea captains a certain savoir faire out on the waves. Along with growing seafaring technology (better gunnery, better ship designs and better logistics for building and supporting their fleets), this enabled the English seamen to consistently best their French challengers despite a number of tricky moments and some real setbacks. The English also managed to eventually develop a savvy officer corps and a system for organizing and moving their ships about on the high seas. Herman introduces us to the line ahead attack mode that the English pioneered and the many other innovations they added including systematic navigational charting, ship to ship signaling, better food and food supply systems, uniforms, etc. While other countries eventually picked up these innovations the English, unlike the Spanish they had long since replaced, kept right on innovating, staying a step ahead of their enemies including the brilliant and ruthless Napoleon who nearly conquered all of Europe and, at one point, seemed primed to move into India, had it not been for his English antagonists and their relentless blockade of Europe's ports as he rushed into Russia with winter descending, imprudently extending his land based supply lines for thousands of miles.

Chief among Napoleon's antagonists was the famed English admiral, Lord Horatio Nelson. But just as Herman gives us an unvarnished picture of a brutally dictatorial Bonaparte, so he lets us see Nelson, the greatest British seafaring hero, for what he really was: a skilled, insightful, courageous and innovative commander of ships, who was also reckless and vain and who probably would have ended his life with a much less exalted reputation had he not died in the heat of the battle of Trafalgar (having once again taken more risks than were prudent). Indeed, Herman's Nelson comes across as something of a spoiled adolescent, insatiable for glory and attention and heedless of the risks to others or himself.

But Trafalgar was a victory even if, according to Herman, it accomplished nothing since Napoleon had already decided to turn east, and the English, who adored their self-aggrandizing champion who had lost an arm in an early battle and an eye in another, virtually deified him. His recklessness, along with a bit of luck, had stood him in good stead many times in sea battles before this as he had out-brazened enemy commanders while retaining control over his own ships. (One of the ways he did this was through a newly devised ship to ship signaling system.)

But Herman also dispassionately lets us see the futility of all the high seas destruction that ship to ship warfare entailed, even as it forged the British navy and helped build an empire. Indeed, it is Herman's contention that Britain' navy made her though what also comes clearly into focus is the fact that external events and the special combination of features that conjoined in the English nation also made the navy. In the end, we get a navy that thrived on its sense of honor and a belief in the value of law, two characteristics which also came to infuse the larger British society as well.

Herman doesn't stint on the unpleasant stuff but he shows both sides, the exploratory travels that took Darwin to Galapagos and others to the Arctic, as well as the wars and the slaughter out on the open waves. And it was the British navy, Herman reminds us, that shut down the African slave trade despite its own birth in the pursuit of that abominable business. He also lets us see how the United States grew up in the shadow of the Royal Navy (some day to replace it with even greater global power) as the British became the world's policemen and guardians of its sea lanes.

A very worthwhile book, indeed, though I had a few concerns. Chief among these is the humongous number of proofing errors that abound here. Granted it's a substantial read but the editors ought to have done a better job. At some points I found myself noticing ommitted words or wrong words or misspelled words on almost every other page. After about half way through I just stopped trying to keep track. But there was one that really stuck, a reference to American Secretary of State James Quincy Adams under the presidency of James Monroe during the establishment of the Monroe Doctrine. As Herman notes, this doctrine was more British than American since the U.S. did not have the fleet to enforce it. Only the British did and had they chosen not to, the American president would have been unable to do it himself. Still there's this reference to the Secretary of State. I recall a John Quincy Adams, not a James. He was the son of President John Adams and went on, himself, to serve as an American president. I'm quite certain there was not also a "James Quincy Adams" in the family. Perhaps the author had James Madison in mind?

SWM
author of The King of Vinland's Saga
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars In serious need of an editor
This book is shot through with factual errors, typographical mistakes, and mangled syntax. Is the art of editing dead? Read more
Published 21 days ago by K. Long

5.0 out of 5 stars To rule the waves
Herman takes on a massive subject and whilst by need providing a detailed history with many references to dates, places, ships and people, writes in such a way to ensure the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Anonymous Review

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read, but...
Others have covered the factual errors that exist in this book (I suspected as much, that they existed, but didn't have the time or motivation to pursue the matter), but overall... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Geoffrey J. Martineau

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, thought provoking read
Arthur Herman brings an obvious love of his subject, as well as the ability to convey history in an entertaining and concise manner, to an examination of the Royal Navy, and its... Read more
Published 8 months ago by D. Sadler

4.0 out of 5 stars Accessible and fun
As popular history, this succeeds; I can't speak to the errors others have found. This is a long story that moves the way Herman describes his subject, in fits and starts and in... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Brenda Campbell

1.0 out of 5 stars Useless
This book has more than 600 pages.
To the worst defeat of the British Navy in history, the siege of Cartagena, the author devotes exactly 6 lines.
Published 20 months ago by Gonzalo Robert Diaz

4.0 out of 5 stars The British Navy Saves the World...
Arthur Herman's "To Rule the Waves" is the best kind of popular history: a thrilling narrative wrapped around an interesting idea and punctuated with lots of the kind of... Read more
Published 21 months ago by D. S. Thurlow

4.0 out of 5 stars Forget Johnny Depp. This is the real thing.
Chapter 1, page 1, a hurricane in the Caribbean of 1568. The author casts us upon the pitching deck of the "Jesus", a leaking old tub commanded by John Hawkins. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Coleman A. Kavanagh

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview
This is an excellent overview of the history of the Royal Navy from medieval times to the modern era. The book dispells a few myths along the way and makes a splendid read.
Published on April 22, 2007 by Mark R., Whittington

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice read but battles descriptions slightly short
Saw this book off the shelf and decided to get it due to its interesting title. The book covers from San Juan de Ulloa right up to the Falklands War and beyond. Read more
Published on April 10, 2007 by J. Tanyh

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