This book talks about the transition of Naval warfare, from the trirene and quinquirenes of the Greek and Roman periods to the Ironclad and Battleships of the Twentieth Century. Richard Humble exquisitely portrays each period of human history with very detailed descriptions of the ships, designs, strategies and the men who operated them.

The battles and the transitions from periods were greatly elaborated but somehow the author has failed to take into consideration the other navies, commanders and events that contributed to the entirety of Naval Warfare such as the Arab-Byzantine sea battles, Roman sea battles, Turkish corsairs, European Pirates, Crusade naval operations, the French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, American, Chinese,German, Korean, Japanese and Russian navies were greatly left out of this book. This was mainly an English dominated book, glorifying the victories and the various admirals and captains that served under the Royal Navy.

Though there are clearly a wide array of shortcomings of the book, errors aside I would still recommend it because this book gives a very detailed account of the changes in naval warfare whether it be weaponry, tactics or design everything is here.

Checked out from the Point aux Barques library on vacation in August 2000.

Evolutio of modern fleet - submatirnes, battleships, carriers. Good