The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815

New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. First American Edition [stated]. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Good in very good dust jacket. Highlighting/underlining. Yellow highlighting noted in a number of places.. lxv, [1], 907, [3] p. Illustrations. Maps. Chronology. References. English Glossary. Foreign Glossary. Bibliography. Index. Professor Nicholas Andrew Martin Rodger FBA (born 12 November 1949) is a historian of the British navy and Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. "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. Based on the author's own research in a dozen languages over more than a decade, it describes not just battles, voyages, and cruises but also how the Navy was manned, supplied, fed, and, above all, how it was financed and directed. N. A. M. Rodger provides convincing reassessments of such famous figures as Pepys, Hawke, Howe, and St. Vincent. The very particular and distinct qualities of Nelson and Collingwood are illuminatingly contrasted, and the world of officers and men who make up the originals of Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower is brilliantly brought to life. Rodger's comparative view of other navies French, Dutch, Spanish, and American allows him to make a fresh assessment of the qualities of the British.