Abstract
America, Sea Power, and the World, is a new survey of American naval history from the Revolution through the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The project, according to the Preface, grew out of discussions between instructors in naval history at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) who correctly identified the need for a new textbook of American naval history (p. xxi). The resulting volume, edited by the renowned historian James C. Bradford, is an erudite introduction to the subject and should replace Kenneth Hagan’s This People’s Navy (1992) and E.B. Potter’s Sea Power (1981) as the standard naval history survey in the United States.
Though the book is presented as a cohesive unit, a different author wrote each of its 23 chapters and, according to Bradford’s Preface, each author was given broad latitude to interpret their patch of history as they saw fit (p. xxii). The chapters are roughly organized on chronological lines, although chapters on the nineteenth-century ‘squadron navy’, the sail to steam transition, and imperial policing take a thematic approach. Combat occupies a large place in the text – ten chapters are primarily operational – but collectively the authors try to portray the full spectrum of sea power from peacetime presence up to major combat. Befitting a textbook, America, Sea Power, and the World is liberally sprinkled with sidebars, maps, and illustrations.
The book’s genesis and organization are the sources of its greatest strengths, but also its most serious weaknesses. On one hand, the structure gives each chapter the benefit of its author’s specialized expertise. On the other, the tone and writing style shift from chapter to chapter, and the structure does not always allow for the clear development of long-term themes. Still, chapters allowing scholars like William McBride, Craig Symonds, and Craig Felker to focus on their areas of expertise enrich the text, and outweigh any negatives from the book’s structure. Many of the other chapters match their high standards. Among them, Aaron O’Connell’s chapter on imperial policing in Asia and the Caribbean stands out for its deft handling of a series of interventions separated by time and space.
However, this informed and learned text is often marred by the authors’ identification with their subject. All 23 authors have a professional connection to USNA’s history program, and they are clearly invested in American sea power as a concept and the U.S. Navy as an institution. Unfortunately, these attitudes often shade into pro-Navy advocacy. At several points, the text makes the implicit argument that what is good for the U.S. Navy is good for the country, and vice-versa. Although that sentiment is defensible, and may have its place in USNA’s unique educational environment, it limits the book’s utility as an introduction to American naval history for a wider audience.
The closer the book gets to the present, the more these tendencies interfere with its goal of providing a survey of American naval history. The chapter on the 1970s and 1980s especially stands out for its politicized analysis, while the following chapter contains a sidebar that seemingly exists only to criticize Congress’s handling of the 1991 ‘Tailhook’ scandal and its aftermath. While these are certainly legitimate positions to advocate in an essay collection, they are rather too strident for a work that purports to be a textbook.
Beyond any issues with advocacy, the text’s approach to history is, at times, uneven. Bradford’s Preface notes ‘[n]o attempt was made to impose a single thesis on the contributors’ (p. xxii). Although that impulse is admirable, some of the volume’s central themes fade in and out of the text based on the approach of a given chapter’s author. This is partly a natural consequence of chapters with a narrow focus on, say, the Second World War, but a firmer editorial hand may have benefited undergraduate readers, allowing them to better understand long-term trends in American naval history.
The book’s treatment of enlisted sailors and social issues reflects this issue. A book that covers so much ground necessarily emphasizes strategic issues and high-ranking officers, but here the text spends very little space on enlisted sailors. Out of the 23 sidebars on individuals, which aim to provide perspective ‘about [people] who shaped the Navy or reflected the naval service of that era’ (p. xxii), only one (on the privateer sailor George Roberts), focuses on a non-officer. Despite other sidebars on USNA and the Naval War College there is very little on key institutions like the Great Lakes Naval Training Station or the U.S. Navy’s chief petty officer system.
Following that emphasis, the book’s discussion of diversity and inclusion leaves much to be desired, beyond limited commentary on black and female members of the naval services. Although some authors do undertake these important issues, most coverage is superficial. Readers are told, for example, that the ‘pressures of the Korean War . . . provided sufficient impetus toward resolution’ (p. 265) of racial tensions in the Navy, which would have surprised black sailors of the period. Likewise, discussion of women in the naval service is restricted to a brief mention of the World War II-era WAVES and the integration of women into combat arms in the 1990s. The latter chapter contains the strident sidebar mentioned above. These issues of diversity and inclusion are not necessary for a book with such a broad remit, but this slapdash treatment is almost worse than nothing.
This unevenness is echoed in the book’s inconsistent proofreading and fact checking. Among multiple factual errors, for example, the chapter on the late Cold War refers to an American invasion of ‘Granada’ (pp. 316, 318). More worryingly, the reviewer found a few historical errors that could mislead the reader (e.g. ‘On Thermonuclear War . . . a novel’, on p. 281). While most of these issues are minor, they suggest a low standard of copyediting.
As noted, one of the book’s strengths is its broad approach to naval history. While the text is focused on the U.S. Navy, readers of America, Sea Power, and the World will gain a good understanding of the organization’s relation to wider trends in American history. Particularly strong is the emphasis on the linkages between the U.S. Navy and American maritime commerce. Especially in the book’s first half, the authors skilfully show how the history of American seaborne trade is intertwined with the U.S. Navy’s and illustrate the importance of small-scale naval operations to protecting American trade.
Likewise, the text highlights the U.S. Marine Corps’ role as a maritime service. Throughout the last half of the book, the authors clearly demonstrate the Marines’ crucial role in American sea power during both high intensity conflict and ‘gunboat diplomacy’. While discussions of the Corps’ role in the recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars stray a bit from the maritime focus, the treatment of Marine Corps history is another major strength of the book.
Despite the problems mentioned above, America, Sea Power, and the World compares favourably to its predecessors and successfully provides a broad history of American sea power appropriate for an undergraduate survey course. Independent readers looking for a one-volume survey of American naval history may decide to pick Stephen Howarth’s To Shining Sea or Craig Symonds’s The U.S. Navy: A Concise History instead. Considered solely as a textbook, however, America, Sea Power, and the World dramatically outclasses Potter’s Sea Power, and provides broader coverage than Baer’s One Hundred Years of Sea Power or Hagan’s This People’s Navy.