The subtitle of this large history, ‘How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World’, is a generous tribute from the American professor who wrote it. Based on very wide reading of secondary sources, the author has little new to say in a book which opens with Drake and closes with the Falklands campaign.
He has, however, very much his own point of view and he supports it by notable narrative gifts. Ready always to give individuals credit and to disclose their personal idiosyncrasies, he does not hesitate to record the shortcomings or to criticise the misjudgments of those whom he admires. Thus while Drake is recognised for the bold and original seaman and phenomenal leader that he was, Professor Herman makes no bones about characterising him as a pirate, unscrupulous and sometimes cruel.
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