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Showing results for tags 'nrg book review'.
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The Man Who Discovered Antarctica: Edward Bransfield Explained By Sheila Bransfield Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2019 6-1/4” x 9-1/4”, hardcover, xviii + 318 pages Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 ISBN: 9781526752635 A young Irish sailor pressed into the Royal Navy at the outset of the Napoleonic Wars might not be an expected candidate for achieving exploratory milestones in the service. This is, however, exactly the story that Sheila Bransfield seeks to bring to life in The Man Who Discovered Antarctica, a work which tracks this young man—Edwa -
Early U.S. Navy Carrier Raids, February-April 1942: Five Operations that Tested a New Dimension of American Air Power By David Lee Russell Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2019 7” x 10”, softcover, vii + 197 pages Illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95 ISBN: 9781476638614 From February through April in 1942, the United States Navy launched a series of aircraft carrier raids against the Empire of Japan. Although the raids were pinpricks, with little material impact, they proved critically important. Early U.S. Na
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Minding the Helm: An Unlikely Career in the U.S. Coast Guard By Kevin P. Gilheany Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2019 6-1/4” x 9-1/4”, hardcover, viii + 269 pages Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95 ISBN: 9781574417500 The perils of traveling the world’s waters demands only brave souls serve aboard a seagoing vessel, and requires the most valiant souls to save them when they are distressed. The United States Coast Guard, formed from a merger of the United States Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service in 1915, has a rich tra
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The Capture of the USS Pueblo: The Incident, the Aftermath and the Motives of North Korea By James Duermeyer Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2019 6” x 9”, softcover, x + 199 pages Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 ISBN: 9781476675404 For me, as a 33-year intelligence officer. this book was fascinating in its detail and documentation, Commander Duermeyer did a great job of clearing the mist of intelligence and the military argot in the introduction and first chapter. He did an outstanding lay out of the interaction between the Navy and th
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Before the Battlecruiser: The Big Cruiser in the World’s Navies, 1865-1910 By Aidan Dodson Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2018 Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2018 9” x 11-1/4”, hardcover, 304 pages Photographs, diagrams, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $57.95 ISBN: 9781473892163 The historiography of warship technology in the second half of the nineteenth century is dominated by analysis and discussion of developments in battleship design, essentially, the competition between protection and artillery that culminated in the emergence, i
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The British Civil Wars at Sea, 1638-1653 By Richard J. Blakemore & Elaine Murphy Woodbridge, Sussex: The Boydell Press, 2018 6-1/2” x 9-1/2”, hardcover, xiv + 225 pages Illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $115.00 ISBN: 9781783272297 In The British Civil Wars at Sea: 1638-1653, Richard Blakemore and Elaine Murphy offer a concise, yet thoroughly researched account of the British civil wars from a naval perspective. This is a long overdue study and a largely neglected aspect of the British civil wars and naval history.
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Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550-1800 By Margaret E. Schotte Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019 7-1/4” x 10-1/4”, hardcover, xi + 297 pages Illustrations, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. $59.95 ISBN: 9781421429533 The question of how one becomes a proficient sailor has long been a subject of debate and speculation within maritime history. At what point does a green hand become and able seaman? Which skills were considered essential in an era before state-regulated licensing? Navigators were among the earliest class of se
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Confederate Ironclads at War By R. Thomas Campbell Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2019 7” x 10”, softcover, vii + 268 pages Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 ISBN: 9781476676401 The name R. Thomas Campbell is well-known to anyone who has studied the history of the Confederate Navy over the past two decades. Campbell has published no fewer than twenty books in the last quarter century, either as author or editor, all on a variety of Confederate naval topics. In this reviewer’s opinion, his best work was Storm Over Carolina, p
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Captain Kidd’s Lost Ship: The Wreck of the Quedagh Merchant By Frederick H. Hanselmann Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2019 6-1/4” x 9-1/4”, hardcover, xxii + 198 pages Illustrations, drawings, tables, maps, bibliography, index. $85.00 ISBN: 9780813056227 The allure of pirates has spanned generations, inspiring numerous fictional works and a myriad of historical and archaeological research to understand the lives of these nationless sailors. In recent decades, archaeology has begun to embrace the study of pirates and methodically explore their res
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The Colour Blue in Historic Shipbuilding from Antiquity to Modern Times By Joachim Müllerschön Norderstedt: BoD -Books on Demand, 2019 7-3/4” x 11”, hardcover, 200 pages Illustrations, notes, references. €76.80 ISBN: 9783749419883 Every once in a while a new book is published that defies simple classification but, simultaneously, turns out to contain so much useful and intriguing information that it cannot be ignored. The Colour Blue in Historic Shipbuilding is just such a work. Its title would classify it instantaneously as esoterica, of interest only to a
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“Our Little Monitor” The Greatest Invention of the Civil War By Anna Gibson Holloway & Jonathan W. White Kent: The Kent State University Press, 2018 7-1/4” x 10-1/2”, hardcover, xix +283 pages Illustrations, tables, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95 ISBN: 9781606353141 Few Civil War ships have been as written about as USS Monitor. Many books and articles about the first-of-its-kind warship and the Battle of Hampton Roads, which served as its proving ground have been published. This new work by Anna Gibson Holloway and Jonathan W. White is pos
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U.S. Navy Auxiliary Vessels: A History and Directory from World War I to Today By Ken W. Sayers Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2019 7” x 10”, softcover, vii + 353 pages Photographs, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00 ISBN: 9781476672564 Military men often say. “Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics.” What is true for the army and air force goes double for the navy. You cannot fight if you cannot get there. Since steam replaced sail you cannot get there unless you have fuel. Even if you have fuel, you cannot win without the foo
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Victory Without Peace: The United States Navy in European Waters, 1919-1924 By William N. Still, Jr. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2018 7-1/2” x 10-1/2”, hardcover, xi + 368 pages Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $68.00 ISBN: 9781682470145 Victory Without Peace is the final volume of William N. Still’s groundbreaking study of the United States Navy’s operations in European waters. By 1919, when this book begins, the “war to end all wars” was over, the United States and its allies were the victors, the country was eagerly awaiting the return of i
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Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at SeaBy John Lehman New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018 6-1/2” x 9-1/2”, hardcover, xxix + 330 pages Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $27.95 ISBN: 97803932542549 On November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall came down, symbolizing the collapse of the Soviet Union and its defeat in the Cold War. Economic exhaustion precipitated by its strenuous efforts to match and surpass the military prowess of the United States abruptly brought the Soviet Union to its knees, ending a forty-year conflict. John Lehman’s Ocea
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The World of the Battleship: The Design & Careers of Capital Ships of the World’s Navies 1880-1990 Edited by Bruce Taylor Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2018 Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2018 9-3/4” x 10-1/2”, hardcover, 440 pages Photographs, tables, notes, bibliographies, index. $76.95 ISBN: 9781848321786 From the outset The World of the Battleship disconcerts, not least because the subtitle on the dustjacket—The Design & Careers of Capital Ships of the World’s Navies 1880-1990—is markedly different from that in the book itself—The Lives
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British Blockade Runners in the American Civil War By Joseph McKenna Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2019 7” x 10”, softcover, vii + 209 pages Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 ISBN: 9781476676791 As there are hundreds of books on American Civil War maritime history and the blockade of the South, one has to question what makes McKenna's book stand out among his colleagues’ writings? The author states in his introduction that he hopes to rectify "little mistakes" made in American writings that have been perpetuated due to the lack of Br
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Ironclad Captains of the Civil War By Myron J. Smith, Jr. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2018 7” x 10”, softcover, 262 pages Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. $75.00 ISBN: 9781476666365 Myron J. Smith, Jr., emeritus library director and professor at Tusculum University in Tennessee is best known for the wealth of scholarship he has contributed on the Civil War navies in the western theater. In this, his latest volume, he has produced an excellent reference source for anyone interested in the history of the navies and ironclads o
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Florida’s Lost Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck Edited by Roger C. Smith Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2018 6-1/4” x 9-1/4”, hardcover, xvii + 299 pages Illustrations, diagrams, appendix, references, index. $34.95 ISBN: 9780813056760 The discovery of the Emanuel Point shipwreck in 1992, subsequent field excavation campaigns and field school work, associated historical research, ongoing conservation of recovered artifacts, and public outreach programming all are the substance of this relatively brief and highly readable work. The wreck itself
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Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates By Eric Jay Dolin New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2018 6-1/2” x 9-1/2”, hardcover, xxix + 379 pages Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 ISBN: 9781631492105 As Eric Jay Dolin notes, both in his introduction and in his acknowledgements, there is far from a shortage of books about pirates, let alone about those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although publishers probably are little concerned about adding to this number (the public’s fasci
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The U.S. Navy against the Axis: Surface Combat 1941-1945 By Vincent P. O’Hara Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2017 6” x 9”, softcover, xvi + 364 pages Photographs, maps, tables, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95 ISBN: 9781682471852 InThe U.S. Navy Against the Axis: Surface Combat, 1941-1945, Vincent O’Harapresents an excellent analysis of the United States Navy’s surface engagements during World War II. He argues that some historians have been too quick to give full credit for the American naval victory in the Pacific to the advent of naval air
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Joseph Brown and His Civil War Ironclads: The USS Chillicothe, Indianolaand Tuscumbia By Myron J. Smith, Jr. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2017 7” x 10”, softcover, x + 384 pages Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 ISBN: 9780786495764 InJoseph Brown and His Civil War Ironclads: the USS Chillicothe, Indianola and Tuscumbia, Myron J. Smith, Jr. provides a thorough analysis of one man’s contribution to the Civil War. The author gives the story of Joseph Brown’s life as one of the most successful but virtually unknown contrac
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John Banister of Newport: The Life and Accounts of a Colonial Merchant By Marian Mathison Desrosiers Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2017 7” x 10”, softcover, xii + 234 pages Illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 ISBN: 9781476669328 Marian Desrosiers interprets a qualitative assessment of newly found ledgers in John Banister of Newport. These ledgers detail everyday expenditures for one of the most active merchants of Newport, Rhode Island between 1746–1749 CE. Meticulous entries denote quantities, purchasing and
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Shipmates: The Men of LCS 52in World War II By Gary Burns Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2016 6” x 9”, softcover, x + 197 pages Photographs, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95 ISBN: 9781476666877 Gary Burns’ Shipmates: The Men ofLCS 52 in World War II is an atypical monograph on the subject of naval operations in the Second World War. Burns provides background detail and emphasis on the events that led to conflict in the 1930s and 40s, in addition to focusing on the Pacific Theatre by turning a lens on the individual. The ma
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Rough Waters: Sovereignty and the American Merchant Flag By Rodney Carlisle Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2017 6-1/2” x 9-1/2”, hardcover, xii + 278 pages Photographs, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $31.95 ISBN: 9781682470091 In Rough Waters, Rodney P. Carlisle studies the emotional symbolism attached to the United States flag and its merchant marine fleet. According to the author, American naval and political figures adhered to an eighteenth century gentleman’s honor code. As a result, the language, rhetoric, and values associated with the gentlem
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Hornblower’s Historical Shipmates: The Young Gentlemen of Pellew’s Indefatigable By Heather Noel-Smith & Lorna M. Campbell Woodbridge, Sussex: The Boydell Press, 2016 6-1/2” x 9-1/2”, hardcover, xii + 248 pages Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95 ISBN: 9781783270996 In Heather Noel- Smith and Lorna Campbell’s work Hornblower’s Historical Shipmates: The Young Gentlemen of Pellew’s Indefatigable the reader is presented with a detailed history of Captain Sir Edward Pellew’s rise through the ranks. The authors also provide brief, but detailed,
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