The History Book Club discussion

All,

This is a folder which highlights naval warfare and its history. Being able to discuss famous ships, admirals and captains, battles, tactical maneuvers while at sea and the various stages in the development of naval warfare should prove interesting.

Currently, we have added the following interest areas (threads):

I. The Age of Sail

II. Naval Warships and their Navies

III. Famous Sea Battles

IV. Submarines and Submarine Warfare

IV. Suggestions

All best,

Bentley

I am not sure how many folks are interested in the US Naval Institute Press books but here is their holiday catalog:

http://www.usni.org/store/books/catal...

Hi Bentley, The Naval Institute Press usually publish some very good titles so I am sure many readers will appreciate the link to their catalogue.

Great...that is good to know.

Arguably, one of the greatest of naval historians was Samuel Eliot Morison. Having had significant naval service during World War I, Mr. Morison proposed to his friend Franklin Roosevelt in early 1942 to write the naval history of this new world war "from the inside." President Roosevelt liked his idea so much that he immediately commissioned him a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserve and sent him on a continuous series of active duty assignments on a wide variety of ships and other naval commands for the duration of World War II. The result was Morison's History of US Naval Operations in WWII: 15 Volume Set. I acquired 10 of these volumes (all but 5, 10, 13, 14, & 15) when our main library was purging books determined to be excess during a move to a new location. As a retired naval officer (from the Vietnam years) I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Morison's account of the 1942-45 period.

The 1977 book Sailor Historian: The Best of Samuel Eliot Morison
is a compilation of his notes (edited by his daughter Emily Morison Beck) on naval topics going back to Columbus and Magellan.

by Samuel Eliot Morison

by Samuel Eliot Morison

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Hello Gerald,

Please look at the above citations. The group has rules and structure for citations because we want to take advantage of the powerful goodreads software which populates across our site automatically when the citations are done properly.

We require the bookcover, the author's photo when available and always the author's links for ALL books.

We require the author's photo when available and always the author's link when citing authors.

If you need help please read the thread Mechanics of the Board and our guidelines which Bryan posted for you. There are no exceptions to this guideline Gerald. And Bryan spent a great deal of time helping you out and showing you the correct citations on the introduction thread.

The above post is excellent but you must follow our rules and guidelines and attempt to follow them. Here is the link:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

If you need any help, please just ask and we are very willing to help everyone; especially newcomers.

I do also want to thank you for your service in the Navy and especially during those tough Vietnam years.

Here is a new book that looks interesting:

Militarism in a Global Age: Naval Ambitions in Germany and the United States before World War I

(no image)Militarism in a Global Age: Naval Ambitions in Germany and the United States Before World War I by Dirk Bonker

Synopsis:

At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States and Germany emerged as the two most rapidly developing industrial nation-states of the Atlantic world. The elites and intelligentsias of both countries staked out claims to dominance in the twentieth century. In Militarism in a Global Age, Dirk Bönker explores the far-reaching ambitions of naval officers before World War I as they advanced navalism, a particular brand of modern militarism that stressed the paramount importance of sea power as a historical determinant. Aspiring to make their own countries into self-reliant world powers in an age of global empire and commerce, officers viewed the causes of the industrial nation, global influence, elite rule, and naval power as inseparable. Characterized by both transnational exchanges and national competition, the new maritime militarism was technocratic in its impulses; its makers cast themselves as members of a professional elite that served the nation with its expert knowledge of maritime and global affairs.

American and German navalist projects differed less in their principal features than in their eventual trajectories. Over time, the pursuits of these projects channeled the two naval elites in different directions as they developed contrasting outlooks on their bids for world power and maritime force. Combining comparative history with transnational and global history, Militarism in a Global Age challenges traditional, exceptionalist assumptions about militarism and national identity in Germany and the United States in its exploration of empire and geopolitics, warfare and military-operational imaginations, state formation and national governance, and expertise and professionalism.

Bryan wrote: "Here is a new book that looks interesting..."

This sounds interesting. Lately I’ve been reading a bit about the Spanish-American War and it’s interesting to see how Theodore Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1897-1898 wished to expand the Navy. The few white ships in the fleet were soon painted the familiar grey.

Admiral Bill Halsey: A Naval Life

by Thomas Alexander Hughes (no photo)

Synopsis:

William Halsey, the most famous naval officer of World War II, was known for fearlessness, steely resolve, and impulsive errors. In this definitive biography, Thomas Hughes punctures the popular caricature of the fighting admiral to present a revealing human portrait of his personal and professional life as it was lived in times of war and peace.

I didn't know this book existed but it looks interesting.

The Naval Academy Candidate Book: How to Prepare, how to Get In, How to Survive

by Sue Ross (no photo)

Synopsis:

A how-to book for young men and women interested in attending the Naval Academy, this book tells you how to prepare mentally, physically, and academically. The book walks you through the very involved application process, and tells you what to expect during the first year if you do get in. Includes advice for athletes, women, minorities, and a special section for parents.

The fall and rise of the British Pacific Fleet in WWII.

The British Pacific Fleet

by David Hobbs (no photo)

Synopsis:

In August 1944 the British Pacific Fleet did not exist. Six months later it was strong enough to launch air attacks on Japanese territory, and by the end of the war it constituted the most powerful force in the history of the Royal Navy, fighting as professional equals alongside the U.S. Navy in the thick of the action. How this was achieved by a nation nearing exhaustion after five years of conflict is a story of epic proportions in which ingenuity, diplomacy and dogged persistence all played a part. This groundbreaking work describes the background, creation and expansion of the British Pacific Fleet from its first tentative strikes to its impact on the immediate post-war period. The book is the first to demonstrate the British Pacific Fleet's impressive achievement.

World War II at Sea: A Global History

by Craig L. Symonds

Synopsis:

Author of Lincoln and His Admirals (winner of the Lincoln Prize), The Battle of Midway (Best Book of the Year, Military History Quarterly), and Operation Neptune, (winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature), Craig L. Symonds has established himself as one of the finest naval historians at work today.

World War II at Sea represents his crowning achievement: a complete narrative of the naval war and all of its belligerents, on all of the world's oceans and seas, between 1939 and 1945.

Opening with the 1930 London Conference, Symonds shows how any limitations on naval warfare would become irrelevant before the decade was up, as Europe erupted into conflict once more and its navies were brought to bear against each other.

World War II at Sea offers a global perspective, focusing on the major engagements and personalities and revealing both their scale and their interconnection: the U boat attack on Scapa Flow and the Battle of the Atlantic; the "miracle" evacuation from Dunkirk and the pitched battles for control of Norway fjords; Mussolini's Regia Marina at the start of the war the fourth largest navy in the world and the dominance of the Kidö Butai and Japanese naval power in the Pacific; Pearl Harbor then Midway; the struggles of the Russian Navy and the scuttling of the French Fleet in Toulon in 1942; the landings in North Africa and then Normandy.

Here as well are the notable naval leaders FDR and Churchill, both self proclaimed "Navy men," Karl Dönitz, François Darlan, Ernest King, Isoroku Yamamoto, Erich Raeder, Inigo Campioni, Louis Mountbatten, William Halsey, as well as the hundreds of thousands of seamen and officers of all nationalities whose live were imperiled and lost during the greatest naval conflicts in history, from small scale assaults and amphibious operations to the largest armadas ever assembled.

Many have argued that World War II was dominated by naval operations; few have shown and how and why this was the case. Symonds combines precision with story telling verve, expertly illuminating not only the mechanics of large scale warfare on (and below) the sea but offering wisdom into the nature of the war itself.