The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649 ­- 1815 by N.A.M. Rodger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the middle book of Rodger's three-volume history of the Royal Navy, covering 166 formative years of almost continuous warfare. It begins with the execution of Charles I and ends with the Royal Navy undisputed master of the world's oceans. He ends with Marshal Gneisenau's scathing assessment of Bonaparte:
"for it is the events which he has brought about which have raised England's greatness, security and wealth so high. They are lords of the sea, and neither in this dominion nor in world trade have they any rivals left to fear."
Beginning with the Civil War and ending with the Napoleonic wars and the American war of 1812-14, the author devotes chapters for each natural time break to operations, administration, social history and ships. He thus places the purely naval business in its political, social and technological context. A conclusion debates the different explanations for the rise of Britain's naval dominance, and to my mind strongly challenges the reader to ask whether Britain can afford not to maintain a strong navy.
The text is amplified by seven appendices, notes, glossary, maps and index. There are useful plate sections which reproduce contemporary paintings. In a perfect world I would have wished them to be in colour but no doubt the cost impact would have been prohibitive.
Rodger's series has justly gained enthusiastic reviews. We should bear in mind though that, in order to cover the ground, he has to keep up the pace. Whole books have been written about some of his paragraphs. As a cruise through the period, though it's difficult to beat (but for a shorter read try Wilson's Empire of the Deep: The Rise and Fall of the British Navy)



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