From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Morison (was Re: Retrospection of My 1992 Reading)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 02:11:03 GMT

                                      Friday, the 1st of January, 1993

Sandra Loosemore writes:
  I received the two volumes of Morison's voyages books as a senior in
  high school, and it was enough to turn history reading into a passion
  for me when I'd previously considered the whole field to be rather boring.
  I've accumulated rather large collections of books dealing with naval
  history and the history of discovery and exploration, from starting out
  with this set.

Ahh, you might be just the person I've been looking for. Hakluyt.
Hakluyt seems to be a source for many of the early accounts of
voyages of discovery. Unfortunately, Morison's (and Sale's)
references to Hakluyt left me confused as to whether there is
one preferred edition or not. I gather, though, that there was at one time
or another an 8-volume Everyman edition of Hakluyt. My question is:
Is this the one of choice? Does it still exist, maybe in used bookstores?
I certainly haven't seen even an abridgment of Hakluyt in bookstores since
I've started looking (but that's been only this year).

Sandra continues:
  More recently, I've been reading quite a bit on WWII naval history,
  and I'd say the same comments apply to Morison's writings on this
  subject.  They're certainly more entertaining than those by any other
  author I've encountered, but hardly authoritative as the "official
  history" they claim to be because many crucial documents were still
  classified at the time he was writing.  (For example, in the volume
  that covers Midway he glosses over just how Nimitz found out about the
  Japanese battle plan in advance.)

Ages ago, long about when I was in my early teens and when I read nothing
but books on WWII battles, I read and enjoyed Morison's _Two-Ocean War_,
the abridgement of his fifteen-volume ``History of the United States
Naval Operations in World War II''. I'd love to read the big one now.
I gather that this is the official navy history of the war, that it
was researched by a large team of persons under Morison's direction,
but that Morison insisted on writing it in the end himself, and that
that fact means that the navy's history has escaped the unreadable fate of
official histories compiled by the other services (i.e. written by
committee)?

  BTW, I believe the only major cut in condensing his Columbus book from
  two volumes to one was the chapter on syphilis!

That, and the footnotes, which judging by the two voyages of discovery
volumes, might well be wonderful. Sale, as much as the whole spirit
of his book seems to come from wanting to cross swords with Morison,
insists that the abridgement is to be avoided at all costs, because
the full edition is so much more worthwhile.

If I find an unabridged _Admiral of the Ocean Sea_ in a used bookstore, 
I'll certainly snatch it up.

In addition to the above, I have a copy of his Pulitzer Prize winning
John Paul Jones bio, which I hope to work in sometime in next year's
reading.  And his three-volume ``Oxford History of the American People''
also comes highly recommended and is on one of my to-read (soon) shelves.

                     Mike Morris
            (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

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