Symonds excellent book details six decisive sea battles and their formative roles in shaping American history. Six? The first chapter is actually a long prologue instead, and describes the Battle of the Capes, where the French fleet defeated the British off the coast of Virginia, preventing the British relief of Cornwallis's army and thus ending the Revolutionary War.

But although that battle was pivotal to American history, Symonds has chosen the next five as exemplary of the US Navy's development, and its intertwined nature with the course of our country. Those battles are Lake Erie (War of 1812), Hampton Roads (Civil War), Manila Bay (Spanish-American), Midway (WWII), and Operation Praying Mantis (Gulf War). In each case, the close descriptions detail the logistical challenges, technology, and political considerations giving context to the fights. But what makes Symond's book remarkable is his demonstration that leadership and command decisions (along with more than a bit of luck) are consistently the critical factor in naval warfare.

In a larger historical sense, Symonds is excellent at drawing out the lessons that each battle has for the development of American naval power and history. But that alone wouldn't make the book as good as it is -- Symonds has real skill in narrating a battle scene clearly, and an excellent eye for detail.

And his concluding summary, where he lays out the possible roles of American naval military power in the near future, is shrewd, balanced, insightful; in other words good enough that you wish he'd developed it further. Hopefully that will be another book.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, well told and well researched. It covers five decisive American naval battles ranging from wooden ships to the Persian Gulf. The battle I knew the most about ahead of time was the Battle of Midway from World War II. Ironically the battle I knew the least about was Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf.

Symonds does not just describe the battles he also describes the political and economic context that led to them, and what happened after them. This part was as interesting as the battles themselves. One "aha!" for me was seeing the similarities between the war with Spain and the war with Iraq. The author carefully avoids politicizing his points but has no hesitation being blunt about how American policy evolved after each battle.

This is a very readable and well researched enjoyable read and among other goodies reviews where some of those famous slogans ("You may fire when ready, Gridley!") came from. Also that famous Civil War battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac (Virginia).

I appreciate any author who knows how to make history enjoyable and relevant. And I liked the pictures too.

This book is an excellent book for novices in military and naval historical battles. Though the author, Graig Symonds, only covers five naval battles he writes about them in a compelling way. He chose the battles based upon their significance in transitioning from one era of naval warfare to the next. He gives the background (political, economic and historical)that leads up to the confrontation. Thus the battle makes sense within the zeitgeist of the times. He doesn't just give out facts ad nauseum like many military history books do. This book reads like a gripping novel with good coverage of the actual battles.

Craig Symonds has long held a lofty place in the pantheon of outstanding American naval historians. I have enjoyed his scholarship and analysis for a number of years. His understanding and perceptions of the Early Republic Navy and the Navy of the Civil War era have been invaluable additions to American naval historiography, and his "Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy" in collaboration with cartographer William N. Clipson, in my estimation, ranks among the most useful and valuable works of recent naval scholarship.
I enjoyed this book immensely, for both its content and its style. Professor Symonds writes with academic vigor, yet most entertainingly, and uses superb organization of material and facts to enable the reader (and researcher) to easily track the flow of details. This is particularly true of the Midway battle in which multiple events are occuring simultaneously. Symonds manages to keep us informed by seamlessly knitting together the flow of events without overlooking the larger context of the campaign itself.
Perry's victory at Put-in-Bay halted a British invasion and saved the Northwest for the United States, but I would have preferred to see Macdonough's conclusive victory a year later on Lake Champlain as being the real "turning point" in U.S. fortunes in the War of 1812. Macdonough has always seemed to have taken a back seat to Perry but thoughtful naval historians, particularly Theodore Roosevelt and A.T. Mahan, have opined that Macdonough's battle was the more skillful in its management and execution, and it had significant consequences in that it prevented the British army from splitting New England from the rest of America (thereby enabling what would have been the annexation by Canada of most of what is now the state of Maine). The outcome at Lake Champlain additionally proved to be one of the deciding factors in the British decision to come to terms with the U.S. representatives and the resulting Treaty of Ghent signed several months after the battle, ending the war on terms acceptable in an overall sense to both parties in this unfortunate and unnecessary squabble.
Symonds' analysis of the Monitor and Virginia battle and its associated consequences upon the concept of warfare between armored ships is an obvious choice. Although the U.S. and Confederate navies were not the first to develop armored warships (England and France led in this in the 1850s and early 1860s), this was the first combat at sea between these types of ships and Symonds rightfully places this event in its international historical context.
The victory at Manila Bay was an excellent choice for inclusion in Symonds' narrative, for the outcome of Dewey's action clearly propelled the United States (and its growing Navy) onto the larger world stage. Manila Bay was the "coming out" party for the Navy and Symonds provides ample support for his argument that this action represented a turning point in the history of the United States, and perhaps the world as well. The war of 1898 clearly marked the emergence of the Navy onto the world stage in the manner envisioned by Mahan, Luce, T.R. Roosevelt and others.
If Manila Bay was America's Navy stepping tentatively onto the world stage for the first time, then what occurred at Midway marked the emergence of the Navy as the clear-cut leader, and foremost sea power in the world. The outcome neutralized Japanese advances in the northern Pacific, likely saved Hawaii from invasion and occupation, and enabled the USN, psychologically and, soon enough, materially, to assume the offensive in the central and south Pacific campaigns. Symonds' descriptions of the air attacks by both sides and the compelling factors that factored in the decision-making processes of the key players in the battle, are wonderfully done. Midway, in my opinion, is the best chapter in this book.
Professor Symonds uses the final chapter on the Persian Gulf of the 1980s and beyond as a platform for somewhat politicized views on current Middle East affairs, which is certainly within his purview as an analytical naval historian. However, Praying Mantis, to me, is hardly on a par with Lake Erie, Monitor-Virginia and Midway in the scale of changing the course of naval warfare or critical points in American naval history. Praying Mantis did not "Shape American History" as stated in the subtitle of Symonds' book. I submit that a far more "history shaping" event of the modern era would have been an analysis of the Carter-Reagan-Lehman naval buildup from 1979 through 1987 in which American blue-water naval forces were expanded both technologically and in numbers of ships (almost 600). This, to me, really did change history by clearly tipping the balance of power in the Cold War to the U.S., preserved the Pax Americana, particularly at sea, and further fueled the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union (and, by extension, its own naval buildup). The 600-ship navy had important consequences, not the least of which was that it sent the unequivocal psychological message that the United States Navy was going to remain superior to the Soviets at sea and that the USSR could not hope to match the U.S. expansion from the standpoint of technology and financial resources. Professor Symonds may have been better served, even as a detached, analytical, historian, to follow that formula rather than his choice of Praying Mantis.

Craig Symonds has long held a lofty place in the pantheon of outstanding American naval historians. I have enjoyed his scholarship and analysis for a number of years. His understanding and perceptions of the Early Republic Navy and the Navy of the Civil War era have been invaluable additions to American naval historiography, and his "Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy" in collaboration with cartographer William N. Clipson, in my estimation, ranks among the most useful and valuable works of recent naval scholarship.
That being said, I have several quibbles with Decision at Sea, not the least of which is his selection for analysis of three of the five (actually six, if you count the 1781 action off the Virginia Capes) naval battles. Certainly Perry's victory at Put-in-Bay halted a British invasion and saved the Northwest for the United States, but I would have preferred to see Macdonough's conclusive victory a year later on Lake Champlain as being the real "turning point" in U.S. fortunes in the War of 1812. Macdonough has always seemed to have taken a back seat to Perry but thoughtful naval historians, particularly Theodore Roosevelt and A.T. Mahan, have opined that Macdonough's battle was the more skillful in its management and execution, and it had significant consequences in that it prevented the British army from splitting New England from the rest of America (thereby enabling what would have been the annexation by Canada of most of what is now the state of Maine). The outcome at Lake Champlain additionally proved to be the decisive factor in the British decision to come to terms with the U.S. representatives and the resulting Treaty of Ghent signed several months after the battle, ending the war on terms acceptable in an overall sense to both parties in this unfortunate and unnecessary squabble. Oddly, Macdonough and Lake Champlain do not even merit a mention in the Index of Symonds' book, although as a skilled naval historian Symonds has demonstrated in previous writings his appreciation of the ramifications of this battle.
Symonds' analysis of the Monitor and Virginia battle and its associated consequences upon the concept of warfare between armored ships is an obvious choice. Although the U.S. and Confederate navies were not the first to develop armored warships (England and France led in this in the 1850s and early 1860s), this was the first combat at sea between these types of ships and Symonds rightfully places this event in its international historical context.
The outcome at Manila Bay, while establishing for the first time the primacy of the Navy as a player on the global scene, was little more than a mop-up action against an inferior Spanish force. The war of 1898 clearly marked the emergence of the Navy onto the world stage in the manner envisioned by Mahan, Luce, T.R. Roosevelt and others but if Symonds had to include that turning point in his book wouldn't the events at Santiago Bay have been at least a little more appropriate? Particularly in light of the fascinating controversies arising from that outcome with the Sampson-Schley unpleasantness?
Midway is a no-brainer. The outcome neutralized Japanese advances in the northern Pacific, likely saved Hawaii from invasion and occupation, and enabled the USN, psychologically and, soon enough, materially, to assume the offensive in the central and south Pacific campaigns.
I concur with previous reviewers about the not-so-subtle agenda articulated in the closing pages of Decision at Sea. Professor Symonds uses the final chapter on the Persian Gulf of the 1980s and beyond as a platform for his somewhat politicized views on current Middle East affairs, which is fine and well and certainly within his purview as an analytical naval historian. However, Praying Mantis, to me, is hardly on a par with Lake Erie, Monitor-Virginia and Midway in the scale of changing the course of naval warfare or critical points in American naval history. Praying Mantis did not "Shape American History" as stated in the subtitle of Symonds' book. I submit that a far more "history shaping" event of the modern era would have been an analysis of the Carter-Reagan-Lehman naval buildup from 1979 through 1987 in which American blue-water naval forces were expanded both technologically and in numbers of ships (almost 600). This, to me, really did change history by clearly tipping the balance of power in the Cold War to the U.S., preserved the Pax Americana, particularly at sea, and further fueled the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union (and, by extension, its own naval buildup). The 600-ship navy had important consequences, not the least of which was that it sent the unequivocal psychological message that the United States Navy was going to remain superior to the Soviets at sea and that the USSR could not hope to match the U.S. expansion from the standpoint of technology and financial resources. Professor Symonds may have been better served, even as a detached, analytical, historian, to follow that formula rather than his choice of Praying Mantis.

As a Naval Academy grad currently on my 13th year of active duty, I've read a lot of naval history--voluntarily or otherwise. Relative to other works nearby on the bookshelf, this one is engaging, easy to read, and genuinely insightful. The author understands naval warfare and delivers his accounts and his interpretations with a deft balance between the strategic and the tactical, between the theoretical and the practical. I concur with earlier reviewers who commend the overall quality of Decision at Sea... and I also concur with those who note the political agenda that emerges as Symonds' history closes with current events.

Anyone who writes a book on history is entitled to append a few pages of personal opinion on what that history teaches us, so I don't grudge Symonds for doing so. And the presence of the standard anti-war talking points toward the end of the book, masquerading as detached scholarly analysis, should not discourage any student of naval history from reading it. (Heck, if people who support the Iraq War allowed the presence of anti-war sentiment to determine what we see and hear, we'd have to lock ourselves in our houses, turn off our cable TV, spray paint our windows black, and block out every internet web site except National Review and Power Line.) I disagree with a previous reviewer who criticized the inclusion of the Spanish-American War and Operation Praying Mantis here: History is unintelligible if not rendered as a story, and Symonds does his job when he selects those two posts to span a coherent narrative.

His treatment of the Spanish-American War is valuable despite the rather obvious preparation of negative analogies to the Iraq War, and you just have to roll your eyes and read on as he tries to cast Reagan's shwacking of Iran as nothing more than a continuation of Carter's fearsome policy of passive-voice press releases.

My only real gripe with Symonds is the flagrant contradiction between 1) his adulation of commanders at sea who had the fortitude to act on imperfect information and the initiative to accept risk rather than wait in vain for victory to work itself out, and 2) his criticism of the Bush administration for doing EXACTLY THAT with respect to the threats of rogue-state WMD and mass-casualty terrorism. Perhaps Symonds' understandable affinity for the niceties of international custom in the age of fighting sail led him to the same mistake of many of his peers: the confusion of the means of international law with the end of freedom. Our professors seem unable to understand that we've entered an age when the former, when honored thoughtlessly, can be an impediment to the latter.

Bottomline: Those of us who understand the "neo-con" argument for shaping history before it shapes us must accept that many of our best historians and most talented writers are immersed in an academic/political culture that, literally, cannot understand it. We have to live with that, at least until the passage of time gives us the abilty to look upon the Iraq War with the same dispassionate precision that Symonds deploys against the most significant naval engagements in U.S. history.

Symonds's book reviews in detail five landmark naval battles in American history. He has selected these five battles not only for their significance to the military conflict of which they were a part, but also for being representative of different phases of America's ascent to superpower status.



As the book is divided into distinct and separate sections dealing with each battle, it is perhaps inevitable that these sections will vary in narrative quality. The best chapter by far is Symonds's magnificent telling of the battle of Hampton Roads, when the Confederacy's and the Union's fantastic new weapons, their first fighting ironclads, squared off in battle. The significance of this event has been well covered in other popular histories, but Symonds really brings it to life. He conveys the full shock of the Virginia's swath of destruction through the Union forces, as well as the stunning nature of the Monitor's spirited defense the next day. But where Symonds really shines is in conveying the experience of battle aboard the two ships. I was haunted by the imagery that Symonds weaves, the claustophobia, the heat, the smoke, the water overhead obscuring the sun every time the Monitor terrifyingly dipped below the waves.



Symonds doesn't sustain this level in the other chapters. His relation of the battle of Lake Erie is interesting enough. The chapter on Midway could hardly miss, so dramatic were the events, but I didn't find that his Midway chapter stood out in any way from others I have read.



Historians often get into trouble when they veer away from more distant history, where they have the advantage of historical perspective, and try to characterize current events without the same objectivity. Symonds stumbles badly in the later chapters, presenting a partisan and at times clumsily-informed take on the US's current conflicts. (For example, he repeats the oft-propagated canard that the Bush Administration tried to justify war on Iraq by blaming them in part for 9/11, when in reality the Administration's case for war with Iraq was different and more nuanced -- that in the post-9/11 world, America could no longer tolerate defiance of UN controls on weapons proliferation, and violations of the Iraq war cease-fire, from a nation with active connections with terrorist organizations, including those that have attacked us.) Symonds's credulity in accepting a political version of current events detracts from what would otherwise be a fully credible history.



In general, this book does better when narrating specific naval events than in trying to comprehend or explain the broader sweep of American history. It is mostly readable and informative, with one truly outstanding chapter on the battle of Hampton Roads.

Symonds's book reviews in detail five landmark naval battles in American history. He has selected these five battles not only for their significance to the military conflict of which they were a part, but also for being representative of different phases of America's ascent to superpower status.

As the book is divided into distinct and separate sections dealing with each battle, it is perhaps inevitable that these sections will vary in narrative quality. The best chapter by far is Symonds's magnificent telling of the battle of Hampton Roads, when the Confederacy's and the Union's fantastic new weapons, their first fighting ironclads, squared off in battle. The significance of this event has been well covered in other popular histories, but Symonds really brings it to life. He conveys the full shock of the Virginia's swath of destruction through the Union forces, as well as the stunning nature of the Monitor's spirited defense the next day. But where Symonds really shines is in conveying the experience of battle aboard the two ships. I was haunted by the imagery that Symonds weaves, the claustophobia, the heat, the smoke, the water overhead obscuring the sun every time the Monitor terrifyingly dipped below the waves.

Symonds doesn't sustain this level in the other chapters. His relation of the battle of Lake Erie is interesting enough. The chapter on Midway could hardly miss, so dramatic were the events, but I didn't find that his Midway chapter stood out in any way from others I have read.

Historians often get into trouble when they veer away from more distant history, where they have the advantage of historical perspective, and try to characterize current events without the same objectivity. Symonds stumbles badly in the later chapters, presenting a partisan and at times clumsily-informed take on the US's current conflicts. (For example, he repeats the oft-propagated canard that the Bush Administration tried to justify war on Iraq by blaming them in part for 9/11, when in reality the Administration's case for war with Iraq was different and more nuanced -- that in the post-9/11 world, America could no longer tolerate defiance of UN controls on weapons proliferation, and violations of the Iraq war cease-fire, from a nation with active connections with terrorist organizations, including those that have attacked us.) Symonds's credulity in accepting a political version of current events detracts from what would otherwise be a fully credible history.

In general, this book does better when narrating specific naval events than in trying to comprehend or explain the broader sweep of American history. It is mostly readable and informative, with one truly outstanding chapter on the battle of Hampton Roads.

Symonds's book reviews in detail five landmark naval battles in American history. He has selected these five battles not only for their significance to the military conflict of which they were a part, but also for being representative of different phases of America's ascent to superpower status.

As the book is divided into distinct and separate sections dealing with each battle, it is perhaps inevitable that these sections will vary in narrative quality. The best chapter by far is Symonds's magnificent telling of the battle of Hampton Roads, when the Confederacy's and the Union's fantastic new weapons, their first fighting ironclads, squared off in battle. The significance of this event has been well covered in other popular histories, but Symonds really brings it to life. He conveys the full shock of the Virginia's swath of destruction through the Union forces, as well as the stunning nature of the Monitor's spirited defense the next day. But where Symonds really shines is in conveying the experience of battle aboard the two ships. I was haunted by the imagery that Symonds weaves, the claustophobia, the heat, the smoke, the water overhead obscuring the sun every time the Monitor terrifyingly dipped below the waves.

Symonds doesn't sustain this level in the other chapters. His relation of the battle of Lake Erie is interesting enough. The chapter on Midway could hardly miss, so dramatic were the events, but I didn't find that his Midway chapter stood out in any way from others I have read.

Historians often get into trouble when they veer away from more distant history, where they have the advantage of historical perspective, and try to characterize current events without the same objectivity. Symonds stumbles badly in the later chapters, presenting a partisan and at times clumsily-informed take on the US's current conflicts. (For example, he repeats the oft-propagated canard that the Bush Administration tried to justify war on Iraq by blaming them in part for 9/11, when in reality the Administration's case for war with Iraq was different and more nuanced -- that in the post-9/11 world, America could no longer tolerate defiance of UN controls on weapons proliferation, and violations of the Iraq war cease-fire, from a nation with active connections with terrorist organizations, including those that have attacked us.) Symonds's credulity in accepting a political version of current events detracts from what would otherwise be a fully credible history.

In general, this book does better when narrating specific naval events than in trying to comprehend or explain the broader sweep of American history. It is mostly readable and informative, with one truly outstanding chapter on the battle of Hampton Roads.