Naval history books

Naval warfare and navies in general can often get ignored. Those interested in military history tend to have a bias towards military events on land. And, as former US Marine John Kroger explains in his interview on the best books on American naval history, governments often have a similar bias. In the US there is a 'boom and bust' approach to naval warfare that sees the navy run down in the absence of naval conflict and then rapidly increased when the fighting starts. He discusses the wider importance of the US Navy over the past two hundred years, explaining how the building of the Panama Canal was driven by the US’s need to be able to deploy naval ships from east coast to west coast, without having to go round Cape Horn and this, in turn, shaped US policy to Latin America.

Elsewhere British naval historian Nicholas Rodger talks about naval history in the 20th century. He also argues that naval history is marginalised, particularly when looking at World War II, where he argues that the war was effectively won at sea. The losers were those who did not focus on winning the war at sea.