A Naval History of Britain 1649-1815

The Command of the Ocean

The best-selling and multi-prizewinning history, now in B-format.

I have never reviewed a book that has given me more pleasure … a masterpiece

A great work of history … A truly satisfying book that one puts down with regret … Nothing written during the past century, perhaps ever, approaches N. A. M. Rodger’s ambitious and masterly three-volume Naval History of Britain … it is likely to be regarded as one of the greatest works of historical scholarship of our age

Magisterial … triumphantly succeeds in moving the Royal Navy back to centre-stage in our islands’ story

The Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

Stunning … By the time the book closes there is no doubt who holds command

Monumental … Rodger is our finest naval historian

Exciting and original … Here is that rarest of all historians, the expert with the generalist’s approach

Truly in a class of its own … at turns witty, provocative and incisive … you finish it wishing for more

Scholarly and erudite, but also a thrilling story, told with wit and verve

Splendid … There is plenty of old-fashioned narrative in this encyclopaedic blockbuster … the writing advances across the pages like a squadron of dreadnoughts

An enterprise of truly stupendous scope and erudition … Even the annotated bibliography, with its deadpan, often savage comments, is a pleasure to read

N. A. M. Rodger is the doyen of naval scholars … This is an excellent book

N.A.M. Rodger is Professor of Naval History at Exeter University and Anderson Senior Research Fellow, National Maritime Museum. He is the author of The Wooden World and The Admiralty as well as the highly acclaimed first volume of his naval history of Britain, The Safeguard of the Sea (available in Penguin).

The Command of the Ocean describes with unprecedented authority and scholarship the rise of Britain to naval greatness, and the central place of the Navy and naval activity in the life of the nation and government. It describes not just battles, voyages and cruises but how the Navy was manned, how it was supplied with timber, hemp and iron, how its men (and sometimes women) were fed, and above all how it was financed and directed. It was during the century and a half covered by this book that the successful organizing of these last three - victualling, money and management - took the Navy to the heart of the British state. It is the great achievement of the book to show how completely integrated and mutually dependent Britain and the Navy then became.

A Naval History of Britain 660-1649

The Safeguard of the Sea

'No other historian has examined the subject in anything like the detail found here. The result is an outstanding example of narrative history' Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph

The importance of this book is not only in its intrinsic interest, or its usefulness as a superb resource, but its demonstration that this island’s story cannot be told without a thorough knowledge of what happened at sea. The book teems with insights … It is a serious contribution to our history

Remarkable … will be read and reread in the years ahead … I strongly recommend it

Stunning … One of the most erudite, well-written and intellectually impressive works on British history of the past decade … There is nothing quite like it, in fact, nothing remotely approaching it

An outstanding example of narrative history

N.A.M. Rodger is Professor of Naval History at Exeter University and Anderson Senior Research Fellow, National Maritime Museum. He is the author of The Wooden World and The Admiralty. The second volume of his naval history of Britain, The Command of the Ocean, is published this month by Allen Lane.

Throughout Britain's history, one factor above all others has determined the fate of the nation: its navy. N. A. M. Rodger's definitive account reveals how the political and social progress of Britain has been inextricably intertwined with the strength - and weakness - of its sea power, from the desperate early campaigns against the Vikings to the defeat of the great Spanish Armada. Covering policy, strategy, ships, recruitment and weapons, this is a superb tapestry of nearly 1,000 years of maritime history. 
 
'No other historian has examined the subject in anything like the detail found here. The result is an outstanding example of narrative history' Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph

N A M Rodger

Nicholas Rodger is our foremost naval historian … At last, with The Price of Victory, NAM Rodger’s great history of naval warfare is complete – and this final volume is a fascinating triumph … deeply-researched

Within Rodger’s pages is everything you will ever need to know about the evolution of warships and their weapons across a century and a half. Throughout, the author is clear-sighted about the over-rigid exercise of command at sea ... The book’s chapters on the navy’s social history are among its best, highlighting the elevation of loyalty as a supreme virtue, discouraging junior officers from thinking for themselves ... Rodger writes with such authority [and] pays just tribute to the contribution of the women of the Women’s Royal Naval Service

Magisterial … a very considerable and scholarly work of synthesis which will provide a baseline for future work on Britain and its naval history for a generation or more

This mighty book, the concluding volume of a trilogy chronicling the history of the Royal Navy, is the size of an aircraft carrier. Covering the years 1815-1945, Volume III weighs in at nearly 1,000 pages. Max Hastings is right to describe it as a “great work”, full of “unfamiliar facts and magisterial judgments

The Price of Victory: A naval history of Britain 1815–1945 is the third and final volume of a thirty-year enterprise telling the story of our country and her navy. This one covers the period when Britannia really did rule the waves globally, and masters logistics as well as strategy.

Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

Erudite, engaging ... The Price of Victory covers the most densely studied period of naval history in Britain and beyond. This book, and the trilogy that it completes, are testimony to the dedication of a great scholar, the support of institutions and individuals, and the many audiences in the academy, and beyond, that have taken it to heart ... As post-Brexit Britain ponders the obvious question of where next, this timely text emphasizes the critical place of the sea and the Navy in the making of the modern state. Rodger has completed a majestic 
trilogy, one that stretches back to the time when King Alfred first put to sea to stop Viking invaders, with an incisive, compelling assessment of an era that began with Britain at the peak of its relative power, shaping the defeat of Napoleon and a new European system, and ended with the defeat of fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan [and] continue[s] the argument into the present.

Majestic ...  This third volume, delayed by serious illness, brings us up to date and completes an achievement that is unlikely to be repeated, certainly not with such breadth, scholarship and wit.  Rodger shows in gripping detail the ingenuity and assiduity that eventually made the navy into such a formidable fighting force, able to operate all over the world and embark on long and gruelling tours of duty.

We have waited 20 years for the final instalment of Rodger's trilogy on the naval history of Britain from the seventh century to the 20th ... it [is] just as thrilling as the two previous volumes

A Naval History of Britain: 1815 – 1945

At the end of the French and Napoleonic wars, British sea-power was at its apogee. But by 1840, as one contemporary commentator put it, the Admiralty was full of ‘intellects becalmed in the smoke of Trafalgar’. How the Royal Navy reformed and reinvigorated itself in the course of the nineteenth century is just one thread in this magnificent book, the culmination of one of the most admired British historical works in recent decades. 
 
All the great actions are here, from Navarino in 1827 (won by a daringly disobedient Admiral Codrington) to Jutland, D-Day, the Battle of the Atlantic and the battles in the Pacific in 1944/45 in concert with the US Navy. The development and strategic significance of submarine and naval air forces is superbly described, as are the rapid evolution of ships (from classic Nelsonic type, to hybrid steam/sail ships, then armour-clad and the fully armoured Dreadnoughts and beyond) and weapons. As in its predecessors, the social history of officers and men – and now also women – has a prominent place. 
 
Rodger sets all this in the essential context of politics and geo-strategy. The character and importance of leading admirals – Beatty, Fisher, Cunningham – is assessed, together with the roles of other less famous but no less consequential figures. The book is based on a lifetime’s learning, and refuses to accept standard assumptions and analyses. Naval specialists will find much that is new, and will be invigorated by the originality of Rodger’s judgements; but everyone who is interested in the one of the central threads in British history will find it rewarding.

The Price of Victory

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N A M Rodger

Praise for The Price of Victory

Nicholas Rodger is our foremost naval historian … At last, with The Price of Victory, NAM Rodger’s great history of naval warfare is complete – and this final volume is a fascinating triumph … deeply-research ...

Within Rodger’s pages is everything you will ever need to know about the evolution of warships and their weapons across a century and a half. Throughout, the author is clear-sighted about the over-rigid exercise of ...

Magisterial … a very considerable and scholarly work of synthesis which will provide a baseline for future work on Britain and its naval history for a generation or more

Nicholas Rodger is our foremost naval historian … At last, with The Price of Victory, NAM Rodger’s great history of naval warfare is complete – and this final volume is a fascinating triumph … deeply-research ...

Within Rodger’s pages is everything you will ever need to know about the evolution of warships and their weapons across a century and a half. Throughout, the author is clear-sighted about the over-rigid exercise of ...

Magisterial … a very considerable and scholarly work of synthesis which will provide a baseline for future work on Britain and its naval history for a generation or more

Nicholas Rodger is our foremost naval historian … At last, with The Price of Victory, NAM Rodger’s great history of naval warfare is complete – and this final volume is a fascinating triumph … deeply-research ...

Within Rodger’s pages is everything you will ever need to know about the evolution of warships and their weapons across a century and a half. Throughout, the author is clear-sighted about the over-rigid exercise of ...

Magisterial … a very considerable and scholarly work of synthesis which will provide a baseline for future work on Britain and its naval history for a generation or more

Books by N A M Rodger

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