The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare from Trafalgar to Midway

by John Keegan

Overview

Military historian John Keegan’s gripping history of naval warfare’s evolution.

In The Price of Admirality, leading military historian John Keegan illuminates the history of naval combat by expertly dissecting four landmark sea battles, each featuring a different type of warship: the Battle of Trafalgar, the Battle of Jutland in World War I, the Battle of Midway in World War II, and the long and arduous Battle of the Atlantic.

“The best military historian of our generation.”—Tom Clancy
 
“The Price of Admirality stands alongside Mr. Keegan’s earlier works in its power to impart both the big and little pictures of war.”—The New York Times

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140096507
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/01/1990
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	550,898
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan (1934–2012), was one of the most distinguished contemporary military historians and was for many years the senior lecturer at Sandhurst (the British Royal Military Academy) and the defense editor of the Daily Telegraph (London). Keegan was the author of numerous books including The Face of Battle, The Mask of Command, The Price of Admiralty, Six Armies in Normandy, and The Second World War, and was a fellow at the Royal Society of Literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Battle at Sea

1. Trafalgar
The Wooden World
The Strategic Background
Nelson versus Napoleon
Nelson versus Villeneuve
Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail
Battle off Cape Trafalgar
What Had Happened?
The Aftermath

2. Jutland
The Fall of the Wooden Walls
High Seas Fleet versus Royal Navy
The War at Sea before Jutland
The Ironclad World
The Battle of Jutland
The Experience of Action: Battlecruisers versus battlecruisers; battleships versus battleships; the smaller ships
The Aftermath

3. Midway
The Coming of the Aircraft Carrier
The Two Navies
The Pacific War before Midway
The Midway Campaign
The Battle of Midway: The battle over Midway island; the great carrier battle; the retreat from Midway
Counting the Cost

4. The Battle of the Atlantic: Convoys SC122 and HX229
The Emergence of the Submarine
Dönitz and the U-boat Service
The Battle of the Atlantic
The Underwater War: Convoy; U-boats; escorts; anti-submarine weapons; aircraft; radio intelligence; decryption
The Battle for Convoys HX229 and SC122: HX229 and SC122; the wolf-packs; the encounter; the massacre of HX229; the ordeal of SC122; the coming of the aircraft
The Balance of the Battle

Conclusion: An Empty Ocean

Glossary
Select Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

All the same, ''The Price of Admiralty'' is an essentially humanistic book. It stands alongside Mr. Keegan's earlier works, in its power to impart both the big and little pictures of war. Within a few pages, it explains that the key to victory at Trafalgar was not ship-killing but man-killing, and that the French never heaved their dead overboard in time of action as the English did because ''a Catholic widow needed the evidence of burial of her husband's body if she was to remarry.'' Such details lend a human dimension to the most abstract of military calculations. -- New York Times

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

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.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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

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