Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History - Hardcover

Symonds, Craig L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195171454 ISBN 13: 9780195171457

Publisher: OUP USA, 2005

Synopsis

From thunderous broadsides traded between wooden sailing ships on Lake Erie, to the carrier battles of World War II, to the devastating high-tech action in the Persian Gulf, here is a gripping history of five key battles that defined the evolution of naval warfare--and the course of the American nation. Acclaimed military historian Craig Symonds offers spellbinding narratives of crucial engagements, showing how each battle reveals the transformation of technology and weaponry from one war to the next; how these in turn transformed naval combat; and how each event marked a milestone in American history. BL Oliver Hazard Perry's heroic victory at Lake Erie, one of the last great battles of the Age of Sail, which secured the Northwestern frontier for the United States BL The brutal Civil War duel between the ironclads Monitor and Virginia, which sounded the death knell for wooden-hulled warships and doomed the Confederacy's hope of besting the Union navy BL Commodore Dewey's stunning triumph at Manila Bay in 1898, where the U.S. displayed its "new navy" of steel-hulled ships firing explosive shells and wrested an empire from a fading European power BL The hairsbreadth American victory at Midway, where aircraft carriers launched planes against enemies 200 miles away--and where the tide of World War II turned in the space of a few furious minutes BL Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf, where computers, ship-fired missiles, and "smart bombs" not only changed the nature of warfare at sea, but also marked a new era, and a new responsibility, for the United States. Symonds records these encounters in detail so vivid that readers can hear the wind in the rigging and feel the pounding of the guns. Yet he places every battle in a wide perspective, revealing their significance to America's development as it grew from a new Republic on the edge of a threatening frontier to a global superpower. Decision at Sea is a powerful and illuminating look at pivotal moments in the history of the Navy and of the United States. It is also a compelling study of the unchanging demands of leadership at sea, where commanders must make rapid decisions in the heat of battle with lives--and the fate of nations--hanging in the balance.

About this title

Review:

this award-winning book - perhaps Symond's best ever...is history at its absolute best. (Proceedings)

About the Author:

Craig L. Symonds is a leading Civil War and naval historian who taught for more than thirty years at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island; and Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England. His ten books include the award-winning biographies Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography; Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War; and Confederate Admiral: The Life and Wars of Franklin Buchanan, plus The Naval Institute Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy and A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War.

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0195171454
• ISBN 13: 9780195171457
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400