Bøger i Studies in Naval History and Sea Power serien

Genesis of the Grand Fleet: The Admiralty, Germany, and the Home Fleet, 1896-1914 tells the story of the prewar predecessor to the Royal Navy's war-winning Grand Fleet: the Home Fleet. Established in early 1907 by First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher, the Home Fleet combined an active core of powerful armored warships with a unification of the various reserve divisions of warships previously under the control of the three Royal Navy home port commands. Fisher boasted that the new Home Fleet would be able to counter the growing German Hochseeflotte. While these boasts were accurate, they were not the sole motivation behind the Home Fleet's establishment. The Liberal Party's landslide victory in the 1906 General Election made fiscal economy on the part of the Admiralty even more important than before, and this significantly influenced the Home Fleet's creation. Subsequently the Home Fleet suffered a sustained campaign of criticism by the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet, Lord Charles Beresford. This campaign ruined many careers including Beresford's and resulted in the assimilation of the Channel Fleet into the Home Fleet in 1909. From 1910 onward the Home Fleet steadily evolved and became the most important single command in the Royal Navy, and the Home Fleet's successive commanders-in-chief had influence on strategic policy rivaled only by the Board of Admiralty. The last prewar commander of the Home Fleet, Admiral Sir George Callaghan achieved this influence by impressing the civilian head of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. A driven reformer, Churchill's influence was almost as important as Fisher's. Against this backdrop of political drama, Genesis of the Grand Fleet: The Admiralty, Germany, and the Home Fleet, 1896-1914 explains how Britain maintained its maritime preeminence in the early twentieth century. As Christopher Buckey describes, the fleet sustained Britain and her allies' path to victory in World War I.

Learning War examines the U.S. Navy's doctrinal development from 1898-1945 and explains why the Navy in that era was so successful as an organization at fostering innovation. A revolutionary study of one of history's greatest success stories, this book draws profoundly important conclusions that give new insight, not only into how the Navy succeeded in becoming the best naval force in the world, but also into how modern organizations can exploit today's rapid technological and social changes in their pursuit of success. Trent Hone argues that the Navy created a sophisticated learning system in the early years of the twentieth century that led to repeated innovations in the development of surface warfare tactics and doctrine. The conditions that allowed these innovations to emerge are analyzed through a consideration of the Navy as a complex adaptive system. Learning War is the first major work to apply this complex learning approach to military history. This approach permits a richer understanding of the mechanisms that enable human organizations to evolve, innovate, and learn, and it offers new insights into the history of the United States Navy.

Covers the life and professional career of Adm. John S. McCain Sr. Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, McCain's career highlights the integration of aviation into the Navy emphasizing the evolution of the aircraft carrier from a tactical element of the fleet stressing sea control to a force capable of long-range power projection.

Examines how intellectual and institutional developments transformed the US Navy from 1873 to 1898. These dates bracket a dynamic quarter-century during which Americans witnessed their navy transform from a modest imperial constabulary into a powerful mechanized force designed principally for national defense.

Illustrates how Australia confronted the need to base its post-World War I defense planning around the security provided by a major naval power: in the first instance, Britain, and later the United States.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Stafford Corbett emerged as foundational thinkers on maritime power. This book explores their grand strategic foundations of maritime strategy, their ideas about naval warfare, to how they thought a navy should integrate with other instruments of national power.

Provides the first scholarly study of the US naval shipbuilding industry from the early 1920s to the end of World War II, when American shipyards produced the world's largest fleet that helped defeat the Axis powers in all corners of the globe.

Given the dearth of scholarship on the Phoney War, this book examines the early months of World War II when Winston Churchill's ability to lead Britain in the fight against the Nazis was being tested.

Examines how the US became a superpower through amphibious operations. While other major world powers pursued and embraced different weapons and technologies in order to create different means of waging war, the US spent decades training, developing, and employing amphibious warfare to pursue its national interests.