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Turret Versus Broadside: An Anatomy of British Naval Prestige, Revolution and Disaster, 1860-1870

Reviewed by Dr. Joseph Moretz In Turret Versus Broadside, Howard J. Fuller, a Reader in War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton in Great Britain, relates the history of the Royal Navy’s struggle to retain maritime supremacy in the face of ironclad warships innovated by the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. The engagement between

Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862

Reviewed by CAPT Derek R. Fix, USN Unlike Anything That Ever Floated is one of the newest additions to the Savas Beattie Emerging Civil War Series, which offers compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s most important battles and stories.  Author Dwight Sturtevant Hughes provides a captivating narrative of the Battle of Hampton

The Ten Thousand-Day War at Sea: The U.S. Navy in Vietnam (1950-1975)

Reviewed by Major Chris Ketcherside, USMC (Ret.) The Ten Thousand-Day War at Sea is a companion book to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum’s exhibit of the same name, though it does hold up well enough on its own as a short summation of all U.S. Naval operations during the conflict in Vietnam. The book is

Washington’s Engineer: Louis Duportail and the Creation of an Army Corps

Reviewed by Capt. Charles “Herb” Gilliland, USN (Ret.) Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Lafayette! Now keep it up if you’ve heard of Louis Duportail! I thought not. This reviewer knew nothing of Duportail either before reading this book, in which Prof. Norman Desmarais presents strong evidence that such obscurity is undeserved. As the

Mediterranean Naval Battles that Changed the World

Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. This unique volume is a compilation focusing on seven major naval engagements from ancient times to the modern era that illustrates the significance of controlling the Mediterranean Sea. The author, Quentin Russell, earned a doctorate in 19th Century Anglo-Greek relations from Royal Holloway, University of London, and co-authored Ali Pasha:

Breaking Seas, Broken Ships: People, Shipwrecks & Britain, 1854-2007

Reviewed by Rory McAlevy How do you explore the last 150 years of British seafaring history in just one book? One shipwreck at a time, according to the author of Breaking Seas, Broken Ships: People, Shipwrecks & Britain, 1854-2007. Ian Friel followed Britain and the Ocean Road, a deft and historically sound coverage of the

Britain and the Ocean Road: Shipwrecks and People, 1297-1825

Reviewed by Rory McAlevy To study history is to study people, and Ian Friel captures that exquisitely in “Britain and the Ocean Road.” His work centers on the individual human experiences that illustrate the story of Britain’s ascendency to a dominant ocean power. Armed with this poignant narrative lens, Friel traces a national heritage of

Operation I-Go: Yamamoto’s Last Offensive—New Guinea and the Solomons, April 1943

Reviewed by Jeff Schultz Michael Claringbould’s Operation I-Go: Yamamoto’s Last Offensive — New Guinea and the Solomons, April 1943 skillfully utilizes Japanese and Allied sources to thoroughly investigate Operation I-Go, an aerial operation set against the backdrop of the March-April 1943 Pacific War. While this ambitious operation employed a large number of Imperial Japanese Navy

Heroes of the RNLI: The Storm Warriors

Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink Martyn R. Beardsley’s new book Heroes of the RNLI: The Storm Warriors tells the stories of the men of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), an institution that is not only one of the better-known maritime rescue services but also a national icon in the United Kingdom. From the 1820s up

Rain of Steel: Mitscher’s Task Force 58, Ugaki’s Thunder Gods, and the Kamikaze War off Okinawa

Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D. Author of over a dozen books about World War II, Stephen L. Moore adds to his bibliography with a wonderful analysis of the Spring 1945 Pacific Campaign for Okinawa. As expected by the title of the work, the first chapters are devoted to telling readers who Vice Admiral Marc

Vengeance Strikes the Blow: A Novel of the Battle of Midway

Reviewed by Tyler Robinson Vengeance Strikes the Blow is a remarkably vivid and grounded read, particularly given that it is such a departure from G. Alvin Simons’ prior historical-fiction novel, Odin-Son: The Berserk Saga. Much of the text reads as Socratic dialogue on the subject of tactics, not unlike Niccolo Macchiavelli’s The Art of War. The tone is also

They’re Killing My Boys: The History of Hickam Field and the Attacks of 7 December 1941

Reviewed by Lt. Col. Michael D. Miller, USAF When considering the 7 December 1941 attack on the U.S. military forces on Oahu, the sinking battleships of the devastated Pacific Fleet are the first images that may come to mind. The Pearl Harbor Tactical Studies Series examines the island’s airfields as part of the larger attack and

2034: A Novel of the Next World War

Reviewed by Steve Ryan Very senior policymakers on occasion use fiction as a way to win our attention.  For example, during the perilous 1980s, Sir John Hackett, a retired British general who fought with the British Red Devil paratroopers in the doomed Arnhem campaign in 1944, wrote The Third World War: August 1985, which was