"Best Histories of Age of Sail Battles?" Topic

I have a couple of very nice books about the Age of Sail, including Sam Willis' "Fighting at Sea in the 18th Century" and Brian Tunstall's "Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail".

Am I missing any other critical history books?

Also, are there other sources that are perhaps on line to consider?

Thanks in advance!

The Royal Navy by Clowes contains a lot of good stuff. I think it may be on Gutenberg.

William James, Naval History of Great Britain.

link

Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 is the classic survey. It is also a really good read, and I highly recommend it. He also has other books covering the Napoleonic period, the War of 1812, and Admiral Nelson.

Rick

Any of the below worth getting?

Adkins, Roy; Adkins, Lesley (2006). The War for All the Oceans. London: Abacus. ISBN 0-349-11916-3.

Gardiner, Robert, ed (2001) [1998]. The Victory of Seapower. Caxton Editions. ISBN 1-84067-359-1.

Rodger, N.A.M. (2004). The Command of the Ocean. Allan Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9411-8.

It depends very much what you are seeking from the books. When you say age of sail I assume you mean far more than the late C18th and early C19th, to include such epics as the Anglo-Dutch Wars?
Personally my favourite is 'Naval Wars in the Baltic: During the Sailing-Ship Epoch, 1522-1850' by R C Anderson. Lots of battles without the Royal Navy dominating everything apart from brief interludes by Nelson and Saumarez. I have a few books on eBay (e.g. 'The Emergence of Britain's Global Naval Supremacy') but not sure they are what you're looking for. Also have a couple of Time-Life books 'Fighting Sail' and 'The Men of War' that you can have for song + p&p although the latter will be a lot if you're not in the UK.

For the War of 1812, read Roosevelt's Naval War of 1812. It was written in response to the misrepresentations in the James work.

Hi Stalkey,
Gardiner and Rodger are both well-respected naval historians of the Age of Sail. I don't think you can go far wrong with anything either of them has written. So is Same Willis. Clowes is very good; William James is a better than average source, except when it comes to the War of 1812. Battles of the British Navy" (2 volumes) by Joseph Allen is a good companion to James, as Allen

But a lot depends upon what you are looking for -

If you are interested in how sailing warships were handled at sea, what things they could do, what things they could not do, then you should take a look at "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" by John Harland.

If interest in Suffren's Coromandel Campaign, I recommend "Admiral Satan" Roderick Cavaliero. There is very little written in English on Suffren, and Cavaliero's book is very competent – a lot better than the title implies.

Before you spend a lot of money on Amazon, let me suggest a couple of no/low cost alternatives -

> Search through "archive.org". You will perhaps be surprised what turns up.

> Consider taking a membership in "Naval Review" – a quarterly publication in continuous print since 1913. Their article archive (open to members only now) has a goodly number of well done articulate essays and monographs on the Age of Sail era which member are permitted to download.

Let us know if you have particular areas of special interest; I'm sure people here can suggest a lot of more specific references (for example, how about a book on the reminiscences of Swedish officers who served in the French Navy under Comte DeGrasse in the Caribbean during the War of American Independence – seriously, there really is such a book!) :-)

B

All good advice. For me NAM Rodgers book is one of the best. I like it because it not only discusses naval operations and battles, but it also discusses the financing and government policies influencing the Navy.

If you are only interested in Naval Battles this is probably more than you want. But if you are interested in how navies are managed and impacted by society as a whole, this is your book.

On a similar track to that followed by N A M Ridgers, I can also recommend "The French Navy and American Independence" by Jonathan Dull (unfortunately an expensive book nowadays, even in paperback).

B