To Rule the Waves

Perhaps the most disappointing part of Arthur Herman's To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World is that such a ripe opportunity to use the word "thalassocracy" repeatedly is passed by. (Incidentally, neither Mozilla Firefox's nor MS Word's built-in spell checkers recognize "thalassocracy", which means "rule by sea power", "dominion over the seas", and other such things. Such a word encompasses the height of the British Empire nicely, but the author neglects to use it. So it goes.)

Regardless of the author's choice of vocabulary, this is a (relatively) informative introductory history of the British Navy, its origins, its heroes, and the politics that created and sustained it. The narrative begins pre-Francis Drake, and stretches through the Second World War (an epilogue that gives the appearance of being hastily tacked on covers the Falklands War, in the spirit of one last hurrah.) True to the title, there are several examples and instances where naval action helped give rise to the world we know today, and not necessarily in the military strategy sense -- much of this is focused on navigational tools and charts, and the debt the world's mariners owe to the Royal Navy for the pioneering work done in these areas.

While a single paperback-length volume cannot claim to be comprehensive in scope, there are several subjects that I feel are either glossed over, or not treated with the level of detail that they should demand, even in a non-exhaustive work such as this one. Examples of this include the War of 1812 (mentioned in passing during the passages on the Napoleonic Wars), events of the Second World War (mentioned in passing, but much of the section is focused on geopolitics and the role of America. The Bismarck merits only a paragraph(!)), battleship and battlecruiser design (some information on the merits/drawbacks of British design v. German design, taking Jutland into consideration. Additionally, the failures of British design (and re-design) post-Jutland with respect to the Hood), and impressment (a major cause of the War of 1812, and necessary for Britain to maintain a large navy -- but glossed over here. Herman even attempts to rehabilitate the practice!)

Additionally, the final few chapters and the epilogue read as an apologia for naval aims and goals -- any and all factors leading to Britain reducing its empire, or navy is treated with scorn, regardless of justification. Herman overtly takes political sides in these last chapters, and his position as a naval apologist leads to some unorthodox positions -- while the Royal Navy had been a tool for empire in the past, Herman seems to imply that Britain should have maintained an empire solely as a justification for maintaining a large fleet in being. As a practical statement, this is on shaky ground. As a political statement, it's preposterous. While this book is worth reading if you're interested in an overview of the Royal Navy's history (if, for example, you have no idea what the Glorious First of June is), this is probably worth your time. More serious scholars, however, would be advised to look elsewhere.