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出版社周刊评论
The author of The Mask of Command here describes and analyzes four landmark naval engagements, each featuring a different type of ship. The engagements: the 1805 British victory over the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar; the WW I battle of Jutland; the decisive defeat by U.S. naval forces, mainly carrier planes, of a Japanese task force at Midway in 1942; and the prolonged struggle between Allied convoys and German U-boats in WW II known as the Battle of the Atlantic. Tracing the evolution from wooden sailing ships to ironclad steamships and then to aircraft carriers and submarines, Keegan includes a detailed description of life abroad the ships and provides the strategic background of each of the battles. He is especially keen on the shipwright's art, explaining among other things how the vessels were constructed to withstand bombardment. In this, his first book-length venture into naval history, Keegan writes as authoritatively as his admirers have come to expect. His chapter on Trafalgar is especially fine. Photos. 35,000 first printing; $35,000 ad/promo; History Book Club main selection; BOMC featured alternate; QPBC alternate. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Keegan (The Mask of Command, 1987); Six Armies in Normandy, 1982; The Face of Battle, 1976; etc.) here offers a bravura appreciation of naval power down through the ages. In aid of his era-spanning study, the former Sandhurst lecturer (who points out that no Briton lives more than 80 miles from tidal waters) examines four landmark naval engagements, each of which featured different types of warship. First off, he analyzes 1805's battle of Trafalgar, in which England's wooden-wall vessels under the command of Lord Horatio Nelson defeated a French/Spanish fleet in atypically decisive fashion. More than a century later, in 1916, Germany's dreadnoughts achieved a Pyrrhic sort of victory over the Royal Navy off Jutland--the first clash of ironclads. With his customary economy and flair for telling detail, the author also recounts the battle of Midway, where US carrier forces slugged it out with a similar Japanese flotilla to gain an upper hand in WW II's Pacific theater. Last but not least, he audits the long-running Atlantic campaign in which Nazi U-boats (at no small cost) took a terrible toll on Allied shipping. Although Keegan focuses on just four remarkable conflicts, he does not restrict himself to their immediate circumstances and implications. In an interpretive afterword, for instance, he comments on the significance of UK losses to missiles and aircraft during 1982 encounters with Argentine forces around the Falkland Islands. The author does so, moreover, in the context of the development of true submarines (as opposed to ""merely submersible"" ships). Conceding that underwater communications remain a problem, Keegan speculates that one day the world's oceans may be largely empty of surface vessels. In addition, he assesses the piratical origins of naval warfare and includes a wealth of nautical lore. During the Napoleonic Wars, for example, British sailors threw dead comrades overboard (to keep decks clear for fighting); their French and Spanish foes had to do battle amidst the fallen because Catholic widows could not remarry in the absence of bodies to bury. A hell-and-high-water chronicle that's as absorbing as it is illuminating. The concise text includes 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations (not seen). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
The distinguished British military historian turns to naval warfare, focusing in succession on the battles of Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway, and the battle of the Atlantic. The Trafalgar section is up to the author's usual standards, but the next two are, unfortunately, full of questionable interpretations, oversimplifications, and outright minor errors. The battle of the Atlantic convoy engagement is largely derived from other sources. Recommended only for the largest naval collections or wherever Keegan has a devoted following. Glossary, bibliography; to be indexed. -- Roland Green
Choice 评论
Keegan threatens to return military history to respectability in academic circles. His previous works, such as The Face of Battle (CH, Mar '77) and The Mask of Command (1987), have helped a generation of readers reexamine their conceptions and misconceptions about battles and military leadership. This is a fitting successor volume. Keegan skillfully and with perspicacious insights looks at the evolution of naval warfare by examining the battles of Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway, and the WW II Battle of the Atlantic. From the "wooden world" of seapower through the ironclads of WW II and the climactic introduction of naval air power to the ongoing rivalry between surface ship and submarine, Keegan gives the interested reader an important introduction to the world of war at sea. More important, he interweaves historic detail, a strong strategic sense of why a battle "went" the way it did, and--above all--a keen sense of appreciation of what the battle meant above and beyond its immediate wartime implications. His concluding chapter is chillingly brief, concluding categorically that "The era of the submarine as the predominant weapon of power at sea must therefore be recognized as having begun." Provocative and insightful, this book should be added to all upper-division undergraduate libraries. -C. P. Potholm II, Bowdoin College
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
Keegan ( The Face of Battle), a distinguished analyst of land warfare, moves in this work to the human dynamics of war at sea. He structures his work around four battles: Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway, and the Atlantic. Each was defined by a particular weapons system. Yet for all the importance of technology, ways of living were as important as methods of fighting. Keegan's aphoristically stimulating theses include the suggestion that ``man killing'' rather than ``ship killing'' decided Trafalgar. The behavior of Kaiser Wilhelm's navy in World War I is described as conditioned by an officer corps readier to die heroically than to keep the sea for months and years on end. Such insights show Keegan at his best: blazing trails for others to footnote. Recommended for most collections.-- Dennis E. Showalter, Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.