Just Finished Reading: Maritime Dominion and the Triumph of the Free World – Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World 1852-2001 by Peter Padfield (FP: 2009)

This was definitely a book of two halves – or more accurately two sections. One the one hand we had very good/excellent discussions on seminal naval encounters mostly in the 20th century, whilst on the other we had some serious axe grinding and quasi-triumphalism pitting the ‘evil’ continental powers against the free and, by extension, virtuous maritime powers – the Dutch, British and American capitalist democracies. After the first such tirade I honestly went into skim mode whenever he strayed from talking what I wanted to read about – naval warfare. Of course what makes this even more irritating was that, when he concentrated on the actual military side of things (rather than slagging off the Germans, French, Russians, Japanese and, later, the Chinese for their many faults) he was really good. His discussion on British naval global strategy in WW1, coupled with a very good description of the joined battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands was very good indeed and I learnt a number of new things which always pleases me. Likewise his two chapter discussion of the strategically decisive battle of Jutland almost 100 years ago is honestly gripping even if he didn’t produce any new information I was unaware of.

Meanwhile both the description of the Russian defeat in 1905 at the Battle of Tsushima by the newly industrialised Japan gave the author an ‘in’ to criticise the Japanese commercial class for not exerting greater influence over the burgeoning Nippon culture and turning the Samurai spirit away from aggressive war and more along the path of aggressive marketing. Japan, the author freely admits, is an anomaly that doesn’t fit his idea of maritime powers dependent on trade inevitably becoming more open, freer and more democratic. This anomaly is never adequately explained. His later discussion on the Pacific war and the Battle of Midway in particular allowed the author to show his deep distaste for everything Japanese if the reader hadn’t already picked up on that.

Finally we had the rather bizarre chapter on the ‘Cold War and After’ allowing more deep seated criticism, tinged with the usual distaste of all things ‘continental’, of the Soviet system followed by a head shaking and tutting condemnation of the European Union. I can guess which way he’s going to vote in the referendum next month.

Despite the very good chapters outlined above, as well as those on the battle for the Atlantic in both world wars, the fact that the author couldn’t stay objective about regimes he found objectionable for various reasons ruined the book for me. This is a real shame as he obviously has a very good grasp of the battles themselves and the historical context in which they took place. If only he left his axes at home rather than needing to grind them in public and had kept his political prejudices in check this could have been an excellent history of 20th century naval conflict. Unfortunately it wasn’t. If you still want to read the good bits I recommend you get this from a library and go into fast-forward whenever you see him going off the reservation.