Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1788-1851 (review)

Reviewed by: Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1788–1851 Carl A. Christie Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1788–1851. By Peter Padfield. New York: Overlook, 2005. ISBN 1-58567-589-X. Maps and diagrams. Illustrations. Glossary. References and notes. Select bibliography. Index. Pp. xii, 451. $35.00. Researching and writing history and getting it published is a big job, a tremendous accomplishment (to some degree regardless of its quality); for an author to have almost a score of books on historical subjects—plus four novels—gracing the shelves of both institutional and personal libraries around the world almost defies the understanding of a mere mortal. This is what the renowned maritime historian Peter Padfield can see when he surveys his life's work to date. Moreover, as a rule, his titles—at least in the area of history and biography of historical figures—have received deservedly [End Page 834] favourable reviews. His latest offering, Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1788–1851, should do nothing to diminish his reputation; it may indeed enhance it. Essentially, Maritime Power continues the argument introduced six years ago in Padfield's Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World from the same publisher. Essentially, he believes that everything we in the western world hold dear we owe to the maritime supremacy and power of three nations, the Dutch republic dominant in the seventeenth century, the British monarchy that superseded it in the eighteenth, and the American republic in the twentieth (Maritime Power, p. 1). After reading his strongly presented case for the Dutch in an initial volume (Maritime Supremacy) and for the British in the second (Maritime Power), we can look forward to the American argument in the third. While Padfield makes a good case for the superiority of the maritime/merchant power over the territorial variety (p. 28), in some ways he seems simply to articulate what many naval and maritime historians seem to have believed for some time. Indeed, he admits this by implication through occasional textual references to such predecessors as Alfred Thayer Mahan and, in his notes, to several other scholars. His references, however, are not definitive; specialists will undoubtedly lament some omissions. This reviewer, for example, found no mention of Christopher J. Bartlett, whose work, most notably Great Britain and Sea Power, 1815–1853, and Castlereagh, would surely have helped Padfield in developing his argument. So too would that of a younger historian, Christopher D. Hall. While his latest book, Wellington's Navy: Sea Power and the Peninsular War, 1807– 1814, with an imprint of 2004, may not have been available before Padfield's went to press, his earlier (and essential) British Strategy in the Napoleonic War, 1803–15, has been around for more than a decade. Just as these omissions jumped out at this reviewer, other readers will undoubtedly find the other odd thing with which to quibble. Notwithstanding a certain bibliographic weakness, this is an outstanding book and possibly an important one. The final determination must await the final volume(s) in the series. At that time wise and experienced historians can take a long hard look at the complete work. As it stands, Padfield seems more than half way to making a really significant contribution to historiography. Carl A. Christie University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Copyright © 2005 Society for Military History

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