Posts by Dorene Warner
‘The Whole History of this Ill-fated Vessel’: HMS Captain, the American Civil War, and the Mid-Victorian Struggle for Naval Superiority
Abstract: In 1869 Hugh Childers, the First Lord of the Admiralty, described HMS Captain as the ‘crack turret ship’ of the British fleet, just before he saw his seventeen-year-old son Leonard (‘Lennie’) transferred over to the experimental ironclad. With her controversially low freeboard, the Captain was to finally embody all of the salient features of American Civil War…
Read MoreNavigating Uncharted Waters: The Russian Naval General Staff, 1906–1914
Although Russia’s Naval General Staff (Morskoi general’nyi shtab, here abbreviated NGS) has received some attention in the west, two historical mysteries regarding its role in Russian defense policy remain unanswered. First, why did Russia’s legislature, the State Duma (Gosudarstvennaia Duma), which had staunchly opposed spending on a high-seas battle fleet, suddenly reverse itself in 1912…
Read MoreA Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early U.S. Republic
If one were to judge Michael Verney’s A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early U.S. Republic by its cover, it might be misconstrued as merely being a work of oceanographic or naval history. Although it unavoidably contains elements of the latter, it is more precisely a social history of…
Read MoreJapanese Carriers and Victory in the Pacific: The Yamamoto Option
Japanese Carriers and Victory in the Pacific: The Yamamoto Option by Martin Stansfeld is certainly an attractively packaged volume. The cover of this Pen and Sword Maritime publication is dominated by a photo of Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Combined Fleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku resplendent in a full-dress uniform. Behind Yamamoto, the rays of the…
Read MoreThe Neptune Factor: Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Concept of $ea Power
Just when it starts to seem that after more than a hundred years there is nothing new to say about Alfred Thayer Mahan’s writings, along comes The Neptune Factor: Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Concept of $ea Power by Nicholas A. Lambert. In this newly published and detailed biography, Lambert provides a wholistic view that…
Read MoreSupremacy at Sea: Task Force 58 and the Central Pacific Victory
Evan Mawdsley is a renowned British military historian who has written books on Russian history and the Second World War. In 2019 he published an award-winning maritime history of World War II, The War for the Seas, which highlighted the role of sea lanes and their use in determining the outcome of the war. In…
Read MoreSea Power and the American Interest: From the Civil War to the Great War.
For the United States, the 50-plus years separating the Civil War and the First World War proved a time of great transformation and turmoil. To be sure, not as great as the Civil War itself, but immigration, westward expansion, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, populism, and progressivism witnessed change on a vast scale in America’s fortunes.…
Read MoreTwo Navies Divided: The British and United States Navies in the Second World War
The Second World War was of epic proportions, and for the Western Allies, the triumph won was purchased on the strength of sea power. The contribution of navies stood first and foremost, in part, because their efforts allowed Allied armies and air forces to meet the Axis on terms of Allies’ choosing. At the forefront…
Read MoreFrom the Quarterdeck March 2025
As Dr. David Kohnen of the Naval War College likes to profess: “Naval Historians of the World Unite!” A very apt sentiment as we forge into the second quarter of the 21st century in a year that will witness the 250th Birthday of the United States Navy. Well over a year has passed since we…
Read MorePunching Above Its Weight: The Royal Netherlands Navy within Allied Command Atlantic 1952 – mid 1970s
Abstract The Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) was in the mid-1960s the third navy in size and operations within NATO Allied Command Atlantic (ACLANT). Also the RNLN was one of the initiators of the Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT) and one of the few NATO navies entrusted to operate with US nuclear depth charges in wartime,…
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