Seapower in an Age of Rivalry

Autorentext

Matthew S. Seligmann is one of Britain's leading naval historians and an expert on seapower, intelligence-based threat assessment, and maritime conflict in the modern era. He has published more than ten books and numerous articles, one of which won the prestigious Sir Julian Corbett Prize for modern naval history. He has served several terms on the council of the Navy Records Society, has been a Caird Library Fellow at the National Maritime Museum, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He currently holds the position of Professor of Naval History at Brunel University of London.

Klappentext

A bold and wide-ranging reassessment of British seapower on the cusp of the First World War. In the decade and a half before the First World War, Britain was at the height of its global dominance and British seapower played an increasingly important role in national life. The sea enriched the country in peacetime and the sea was expected to play a pivotal role in any future global conflict. Focusing on all the elements of seapower--military, political, commercial and economic--leading naval historian Matthew Seligmann offers a thoroughgoing reassessment of Britain's relationship with the sea in this crucial, but much misunderstood, period. Utilizing previously unused and underused archival sources, he shows that most existing interpretations of the period have fallen for the erroneous and self-serving narrative spun by Admiral Sir John 'Jacky' Fisher: that a conservative establishment needed to be shocked by his efforts into radical change and that it was only due to his foresight and labours that Britain was first made ready for war and then saved from disaster in 1914. In reality, there were many figures driving necessary change and Fisher, in particular, did as much to hinder this progress as to push it forward. Thus, Britain's readiness for maritime conflict in 1914, such as it was, was often in spite of rather than because of his efforts. In so doing, the book contests the popular idea of a 'Fisher Revolution', decentres figures like Fisher and Churchill from the explanatory framework, and offers instead an original and provocative interpretation of British naval and maritime developments on the eve of world war.

Inhalt

• Introduction
• Part 1 The People
• 1: Leaders of Maritime Thought and Naval Opinion
• 2: The Higher Leadership of the Admiralty
• 3: The Naval Staff and Its Leaders
• 4: The Naval Officer Corps and Its Professionalization
• 5: Manning and Ratings
• Part 2 The Means
• 6: Money and Finance
• 7: The Imperial Contribution
• 8: Fixed Infrastructure
• 9: Ships and Shipbuilding
• 10: The Mercantile Marine
• Part 3 The Enemy
• 11: The Franco-Russian Threat
• 12: New Navies on the Periphery
• 13: The New Navy at the Centre
• 14: The Russo-Japanese War and Its Aftermath
• 15: The German Naval Threat in the Dreadnought Era
• 16: The German Naval Threat in the Era of the Secret Service Bureau
• Part 4 The Ends
• 17: Forming Strategy
• 18: Economic Warfare
• 19: Trade Defence
• Part 5 The Outcome
• 20: British Seapower in 1914