The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy (Oxford Illustrated Histories)
This eponymous complement toThe Oxford Illustrated History of the British Armydoesn't quite sing "Rule Britannia," but it does lavishly chronicle the many-centuried saga whereby that patriotic anthem's assertion became indisputable. Such at least was the case during Britain's nineteenth-century apogee, a period of somnolent superiority until imperial Germany constructed its fleet. Each of a dozen such phases or aspects in the Royal Navy's development receives the attention of a historian whose uncommon depth, combined with fluid generalizing, disproves Churchill's dismissal of Royal Navy tradition as nothing but "rum, buggery, and the lash." Broadly, the editors have sent their authors after the subjects of naval architecture (from galleon to nuclear sub), naval personnel and bureaucracy (from piracy to professionalism), and voyages and battles (from the Armada to the Falklands). Backed by hundreds of images, the chapters interlock to describe an evolving institution punctuated by famous dramas, such as Cook's voyages or the Battle of Trafalgar, undergirded by the year-to-year chore of funding and crewing vessels. A volume of balance between perspective and detail that delights and informs the nautically minded.Gilbert Taylor