{"id":8255,"date":"2023-02-06T23:48:21","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T23:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=8255"},"modified":"2023-03-14T07:01:23","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T07:01:23","slug":"book-review-the-war-for-all-the-oceans-adkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=8255","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REViEW: The War For All The Oceans, Adkins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This is a fantastic book. Worthy of the rare but coveted six stars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some respects it\u2019s quite surprising that there\u2019s so much interesting naval history to be told, when one remembers that Nelson\u2019s 1805 victory at Trafalgar meant there wasn\u2019t another major maritime engagement \u2018twixt then and the end of the era, at Waterloo, in 1815. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book commences with three chapters that culminate in the ill-starred fate of Napoleon\u2019s Eastern adventure. Once again it\u2019s Nelson who puts the kibosh on \u2018Little Boney\u2019s\u2019 plans, at the Battle of Aboukir. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remarkably, despite the period that Trafalgar indubitably represents, there is still much of great interest to be told, as Britain and France carry out global economic warfare, Bonaparte with his Continental System, and England with her blockading and her growing global hegemony at sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s quite revealing and surprising, given how The Napoleonic Wars as a whole have come down to us as a vastly oversimplified tale of the British David vanquishing the \u2018Corsican Upstart\u2019s\u2019 Franco-European Goliath, to learn how often we bungled things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the British Royal Navy, as much as it formed the oaken walls protecting Fortress Albion, was complicit in some of these disasters. (?)\u2019s Buenos Aires fiasco is dwarfed by the almost D-Day like (in size) but also Dunkirk like (in losses) Walcheren affair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add to all this Britain\u2019s nautical rise to ascendancy in both the East and West Indies, and eventual supremacy in the Med and Adriatic, and even accounting for such mishaps as the 1811 Baltic convoy disaster (the biggest loss of life of the period being attributable to Nature, not war!), and a brewing stand-off that develops into war with the US (again!), and it\u2019s apparent that it\u2019s only natural that this era is so ripe for vivid storytelling in the age sail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colour and drama leant to the overall narrative, excellent as that is in itself, by the supremely well chosen and deployed firsthand testimonies, can\u2019t be overstated. This is a rollicking good read. History at its dramatic finest. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a fantastic book. Worthy of the rare but coveted six stars. In some respects it\u2019s quite surprising that there\u2019s so much interesting naval history to be told, when one remembers that Nelson\u2019s 1805 victory at Trafalgar meant there wasn\u2019t another major maritime engagement \u2018twixt then and the end of the era, at Waterloo, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “BOOK REViEW: The War For All The Oceans, Adkins”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[101,89,130,131,169],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-299","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8255"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8255"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8463,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8255\/revisions\/8463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}