Keegan is one of my favorite authors because in a fairly short book he can encompass 5 centuries of events, political motiviation, technical innovations and the personalities that forged the events into history. This one text illuminates the history that made Britian the ruler of the seas and the price they were willing to pay up through the advent of the aircraft carrier. Germany's asymetric submarine wars in WWI and WWII become understandable if not less gruesome.
Keegan captures the personalities of the great individuals such as Nelson but doesn't ignore the blood and suffering of those many men below decks and crewing the Ships of the Line. He also very clearly lays out the purpose of the various classes of ships and the reason why navies build the destroyers, frigates, cruisers, heavy crusiers, battleships, etc. It would seem a waste of resources until one understands the various purposes and the defensive layering and the fights with in fights.
If this is the only pure naval history in your collection, Keegan won't disappoint with his writer's touch, his eye for the sweep of history and his flair for distilling the essential.

I have read many of Keegan's books, and in this particularly it would seem that a piecemeal analysis of battles is not correct or enlightening, since you can't separate events which mostly take place all at the same time. It would be like analyzing one by one the taste of diverse components of a stew. It is all put together what counts. Besides, there are some foolish mistakes as the one of the Nautilus during Midway -which other reviewer described- that are truly demodé.

The more you get away from WW2, the better Keegan looks, since for that war he is the quintessential "politically correct establishment historian". Regarding the war in the Pacific, maybe that doesn't show that much.

The book is an engaging read.

The brilliant John Keegan has made a career of

describing the phenomenology of war. In The Face

of Battle he recreates the experience of men in

the battles of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme.

In the course of describing these battles, he makes

as urgent a case for peace as is possible. General

William Tecumseh Sherman may have said'war is hell',

John Keegan demonstrates it.



The Price of Admiralty is a bit more in the mold

of traditional military history. His theme is the

impact of technology on the nature of naval warfare,

but he is remarkably keen on the effects of rigidity

of thinking on the ability to adapt to new possibil-

ities.



Keegan reminds us that until the 20th century, warships

had a destructive potential beyond anything imagineable

on land. "...six times as many guns...could be transported

daily by Nelson's fleet as by Napoleon's army, at

one-fifth ...the cost and at five times the speed."



The line of reasoning from technological innovation to

application and consequence is usually pretty un-

impeachable. Keegan reasons that the predominance of

submarines is inevitable because of their technical

superiority over surface ships. Fair enough, but his

arguement is now partially out of date, foiled by the

nature of 'post-modern' warfare.



Non-state players and insurgents have no navies and

rarely have a stake in dominating sea lanes. Naval

forces are now likely to be troop transports and

platforms for air support. These vulnerable assets

will have to be protected from the possibility of

submarine attack at some cost, but the absence of

great power conflict suggests that temporarily at least,

the role of navies might diminish.



But don't throw out your Keegan just yet, this is a

wonderful read and nowhere is it inscribed that the

age of a single super-power will last forever.



--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books. ISBN 9781601640005

The brilliant John Keegan has made a career of
describing the phenomenology of war. In The Face
of Battle he recreates the experience of men in
the battles of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme.
In the course of describing these battles, he makes
as urgent a case for peace as is possible. General
William Tecumseh Sherman may have said'war is hell',
John Keegan demonstrates it.

The Price of Admiralty is a bit more in the mold
of traditional military history. His theme is the
impact of technology on the nature of naval warfare,
but he is remarkably keen on the effects of rigidity
of thinking on the ability to adapt to new possibil-
ities.

Keegan reminds us that until the 20th century, warships
had a destructive potential beyond anything imagineable
on land. "...six times as many guns...could be transported
daily by Nelson's fleet as by Napoleon's army, at
one-fifth ...the cost and at five times the speed."

The line of reasoning from technological innovation to
application and consequence is usually pretty un-
impeachable. Keegan reasons that the predominance of
submarines is inevitable because of their technical
superiority over surface ships. Fair enough, but his
arguement is now partially out of date, foiled by the
nature of 'post-modern' warfare.

Non-state players and insurgents have no navies and
rarely have a stake in dominating sea lanes. Naval
forces are now likely to be troop transports and
platforms for air support. These vulnerable assets
will have to be protected from the possibility of
submarine attack at some cost, but the absence of
great power conflict suggests that temporarily at least,
the role of navies might diminish.

But don't throw out your Keegan just yet, this is a
wonderful read and nowhere is it inscribed that the
age of a single super-power will last forever.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books. ISBN 9781601640005

This was one of John Keeegan's early classics. Like Face of Battle, this book closely analyses three distinct naval battles from history. The first chapter on Trafalgar is very appropriate for the recent 200th anniversary. The description of the planning, events leading up to and the action itself are first-rate. I doubt one could find a better account of this battle even with all the recent interest in Nelson and Trafalgar.

Keegan excels in presenting clear and concise descriptions. For land-lubbers like me it was indeed pleasant not to be burdened with a lot of nautical terms which one expects with naval stuff.

Keegan also excels in analysis and comparative studies. In this work you get a pretty good picture of how naval technology has developed from 1805 to 1945. Some generalizations are no doubt present, and for those more knowledgeable than myself in naval warfare I leave to them the details of correcting those mistakes.

For the general reader of this subject this is a great work, and in keeping with Keegan's studies on warfare. This and his early work The Face of Battle completely revolutionized how warfare could be studied. Many since have used the systematic approach that Keegan first devised in these ground-breaking works.

Keegan does not provide the minute detail on these battles that some might desire, but there is good, solid research and thought provoking statements on how each enegagement was unique for its time and place. He provides a chronological study of the development of warfare and shows us that examples from past and present each have their place in the understanding of military science. Even after 20 years, Keegan's work remains as fresh today as it down when first introduced. This is a classic study which will always have a place on one's shelf. Highly recommneded for the general reader as well as military history buff.

This was one of John Keeegan's early classics. Like Face of Battle, this book closely analyses three distinct naval battles from history. The first chapter on Trafalgar is very appropriate for the recent 200th anniversary. The description of the planning, events leading up to and the action itself are first-rate. I doubt one could find a better account of this battle even with all the recent interest in Nelson and Trafalgar.

Keegan excels in presenting clear and concise descriptions. For land-lubbers like me it was indeed pleasant not to be burdened with a lot of nautical terms which one expects with naval stuff.

Keegan also excels in analysis and comparative studies. In this work you get a pretty good picture of how naval technology has developed from 1805 to 1945. Some generalizations are no doubt present, and for those more knowledgeable than myself in naval warfare I leave to them the details of correcting those mistakes.

For the general reader of this subject this is a great work, and in keeping with Keegan's studies on warfare. This and his early work The Face of Battle completely revolutionized how warfare could be studied. Many since have used the systematic approach that Keegan first devised in these ground-breaking works.

Keegan does not provide the minute detail on these battles that some might desire, but there is good, solid research and thought provoking statements on how each enegagement was unique for its time and place. He provides a chronological study of the development of warfare and shows us that examples from past and present each have their place in the understanding of military science. Even after 20 years, Keegan's work remains as fresh today as it down when first introduced. This is a classic study which will always have a place on one's shelf. Highly recommneded for the general reader as well as military history buff.

Here, John Keegan takes a comparative approach to naval history, using the battles of Trafalgar (1805), Jutland (1916), and Midway (1942), as well as the broader battle of the Atlantic during World War II, to highlight the major developments of the past two hundred years. The general theme is the effects of technology -- such as radio and aircraft -- on strategy, tactics, and ship design. As Keegan explores that theme across two centuries, he also devotes generous space to narrative accounts of combat at sea.

I am not a huge fan of Keegan's prose style. It is accessible but not always engaging and often gets mired in endless details. But his analysis is insightful and thought-provoking. I'd highly recommend the book as a starting point for anyone with a budding interest in naval history or for students of military history w hose primary interests may lie more landward.

As always the human element shines through, just as it does in the "Face of Battle". While there are little hiccups that may have been made for example, John uses the word "their" in conjuction when describing the Doolittle raid as another reader noted, but one must remember that unlike in the USA the Doolittle raid is not covered to any great extent in the UK.

It would have been great to have been more detailed on the battle of Tsushima Bay, but not at the expense of Jutland because Jutland was not strictly an Ironclad affair, but rather the first battle between Dreadnought's, which had rendered the pre-dreadnought's such as those at Tsushima Bay obsolete. Indeed the heritage of Battleships from 1906 until the great Iowa's, Vanguards and Yamato classes can be traced back to the first Dreadnought.

Unfortunately, really no space to argue about his conclusions, which one can only hope will never be fully tested. Its a great book, one worthy of collection. Again, people have raised accuracy, but remember British schoolkids aren't raised on the same historical staple.

John Keegan is one of the great historians of the 20th Century, if not of all time. In this book he explored the major turning points of naval warfare. The book is divided into four parts.
The first part deals with wooden ships, as he tells us of the Battle of Trafalgar, the classic and well known battle between English fleet and the French/Spanish fleet.
The second part is about the Battle of Jutland, which from the American point of view is NOT so well known, fought between the British Grand Fleer and the German High Seas Fleet during World War One. Both fleets were made up of steam powered ironclads. Frankly, I would think the Battle of Tsushima, during the Russo-Japanese War, to be more interesting and important, but we all have our own opinions.
The third part deals with the Battle of Midway and how aircraft carriers changed the way naval battles were being fought. The fact that Japan had more, at the start of the war, than all the rest of her enemies did give her a key advantage at the start.
The fourth, and last, part of the book deals with the Battle of the Atlantic and how submarine warfare marked a major changing point in naval operations.
In each part Keegan examines the tactics, commanders, equipment, and, as the titles suggests, the price of both victory and defeat. A must for any military or history library.

John Keegan is one of the great historians of the 20th Century, if not of all time. In this book he explored the major turning points of naval warfare. The book is divided into four parts.
The first part deals with wooden ships, as he tells us of the Battle of Trafalgar, the classic and well known battle between English fleet and the French/Spanish fleet.
The second part is about the Battle of Jutland, which from the American point of view is NOT so well known, fought between the British Grand Fleer and the German High Seas Fleet during World War One. Both fleets were made up of steam powered ironclads. Frankly, I would think the Battle of Tsushima, during the Russo-Japanese War, to be more interesting and important, but we all have our own opinions.
The third part deals with the Battle of Midway and how aircraft carriers changed the way naval battles were being fought. The fact that Japan had more, at the start of the war, than all the rest of her enemies did give her a key advantage at the start.
The fourth, and last, part of the book deals with the Battle of the Atlantic and how submarine warfare marked a major changing point in naval operations.
In each part Keegan examines the tactics, commanders, equipment, and, as the titles suggests, the price of both victory and defeat. A must for any military or history library.

Sir John enjoys a deserved reputation as one of the foremost military historians, but his strength is narrative, not analysis. Whatever possessed him to spoil The Face of Battle with his final paragraph? ("The suspicion grows that the face of battle will abolish itself.")

Apart from the egregious factual errors in Price of Admiralty, Keegan offers very little evidence for his perplexing conclusion that the submarine has been the dominant naval weapon of the 20th century. Considering how very few submarines have "shot for blood" since 1945, and the fact that carrier aircraft dominated subs in the Atlantic and Pacific, Keegan's assertion is extremely difficult to support. If he was thinking of Cold War deterrent, he still missed the mark by a wide margin since subs were only 1/3 of the nuclear triad.

Sir John does much better when he keeps his feet dry.

Keegan is one of those writers who has read and studied his subject vastly, but who is able, when necessary, to articulate his views with poinpoint precision. You never feel as if Keegan is making a throwaway generalization, and no words are wasted. Those skills and capacities he brings to his account of naval warfare since the days of fighting sail. In his first instalment, on Nelson's Trafalgar victory, he explains that naval warfare in 1805 had advanced to the same level of destructiveness as had land warfare in 1914, i.e., an appallingly high concentration of firepower over a small distance, matched only by the development of manoevre. On land, the solution was the tank; at sea, it was Nelson's method of all-or-nothing attack followed by envelopment. In other chapters we survey the Battle of Jutland (featuring some truly superb descriptions of the battleship duels), the struggle for the North Atlantic and the Battle of Midway. A brilliant essay not only for military enthusiasts but for anyone interested in general strategy.

John Keegan has turned his formidable talent to analysing some of the most famous naval battles of the last 200 years. For each, he gives an insightful look into the recent history of the times, emphasising technological aspects of ship handling and weapons. He then breaks down the battles into easy-to-comprehend chunks, followed by an analysis of the consequences (usually political) and the more immediate cost in terms of the sailors and ships involved.

While all 4 battles are famous examples of their type, Keegan seems to waffle between choosing battles that were decisive and those that were stalemates. Trafalgar was a decisive battle, but it was unusual in the Age of Sail that one navy enjoyed such a complete victory over its enemy. Alternatively, Jutland was a large battle, but the battle itself was a tactical draw in that both sides left the battle with their proportionate strengths intact. A far more decisive ironclad battle occurred at Tsushima Bay, so why didn't Keegan choose that (admitedly less famous) battle instead?

The remaining two battles are from WWII - Midway and the Battle of the Atlantic. Midway was a clear U.S. victory, and the purest example of carrier-based naval conflict. The Battle of the Atlantic was ultimately decisive as well, but due to the seesaw of technological advancess, the outcome was very much in doubt for 4 years. Although the submarines lost the Battle of the Atlantic, Keegan concludes submarines are the ultimate naval weapon available today, and points to the success of the U.S. submarine offensive against Japan. If that is his conclusion, why not give an account of the Japan-U.S. conflict instead of the Battle of the Atlantic?

This is nitpicking, however. The strength of the book is the masterful analysis of each individual battle. While I question the overall theme and choice of battles, each chapter in and of itself is fantastic. Therefore, it gets 4 stars, as it is inferior to Keegan's Face of Battle and Mask of Command in maintaining an overarching theme.

Mr. Keegan is a wonderful writer and this book will be appealing to many as it is a good read.

His research, however, leaves much to be desired, and he draws conclusions from wrong facts, facts that could have been corrected by checking standard references such as Jane's.

A few examples (from many): He says that the George Washington class ballistic missile submarines have no torpedo tubes (they have 6 as either Janes or Tom Clancy will tell you). He goes on to comment about a ship on which only the President can control use of its weapons -- its missles.

He says that Hornet and Enterprise carried the Doolittle B26s to raid Japan. Any American schoolkid of the fifties could tell you that Hornet carried the bombers and Enterprise was along for defense.

He has Nautilus torpedoing Soryu at Midway, with three hits. She actually hit Kaga with one. (see Gordon Prange, Miracle at Midway, among many others). Keegan joins the great Samuel Eliot Morison in this mistake, but Morision was writing in the 1940s, while Keegan, writing forty years later, should have taken advantage of the great outpouring of information (particularly Jananese sources) of the 50s and 60s.

I could go on... This is a reader's book, not a scholar's. Have fun with it, but don't cite it.

Naval campaigns analysed by the author represent three different epochs of war at sea.War in the age of sail involving woodenships ,the steam age when Dreadnoughts[ironclads]engaged in duels using long-range guns.Advances in the field of technology saw the emergenceof aircraft and submarine.Concurrently four major sea battles [Trafalgar,Jutland,Midwayand Atlantic campaign]each an apogee of its epoch has become the focus of author's study.Keegan then traces the origins of war at sea and says that it started when pirates started attacking seaborne commerce,a thesis indeed debatable.Of particular interest is author's narration of evolution of naval tactics which has had a chequered past.Ancient times it was galley warfare.Rival fleets rammed amidships.Bridges were thrown and soldiers would board.Outcome of such an engagement decided by brute force.The gunpowder revolution in the age of sail made cannons compact enough to be installed aboard ships. This brought about different modes of engagement.Ships came to fire broadsides.The admirals experimented with different forms of manoeuvre which helped to bring fire on the enemy line better.The Royal Navy deployed ships in 'line ahead' formation alongside the opposing fleet engaging the enemy downwind.However in Trafalgar it adopted a new manoeuvre 'breaking the line'French ships were enveloped and enfiladed from the wings.Experiences of men who saw combat in the seas have been documented.Equal stress has also been given on the impact of technology on naval warfare.The supersession of woodenship by ironclad and sail by steam transformed the nature of war at sea.Arm oured protection enhanced the seaworthiness of ships ,steam propulsion increased its speed.Outcome of battles now determined by the accuracy of long -range gunnery.With the coming of aircraft and submarine war at sea became complex and multidimensional.Naval actions can now be staged on surface ,air and subsurface.Hitherto aeroplane aboard ships have been used for scouting purposes , for directing gun fire.But a combination of bomb and torpedo made aircraft a lethal weapon.A new generation of naval leaders realised that planes operating from flight decks can be used for projecting fire power across vast ocean spaces.This idea made the 'big gun' philosophy obselete.Another powerful weapon , the submarine which can be used to deny the freedom of navigation in highseas posing a threat to the security of maritime nations.Both world wars the German U boats brought the Allied navies almost to the brink of defeat. In the final chapter Keegan predicts future prospects of war at sea.Seas will be devoid of capital ships and submarines would become the instruments of sea control.Using stealth , manoeuvrability,high underwater speed ; launching torpedoes and missiles from great depths it can whittle down the strengh of carrier battlegroups.Finally I may add,with spy satellites hanging overhead, keeping round- the- clock vigil, a pearl harbor type ambush is virtally ruled out.

John Keegan has once again succeeded in writing an exciting, informative, and readable history. As with "Face of Battle" and "Mask of Command", "The Price of Admiralty" covers a long period of time, approximately two centuries. His battle descriptions are unmatched, and his understanding of the subject material--admitedly out of his expertise--is still excellent.

Keegan describes the pivotal battles of the four great ages of naval warfare(though the last two occurred simultaneously): Wooden, Ironclad, Aircraft carrier, and Submarine. He charts how each advance revolutionized naval warfare, and concludes with a debate over the future of war at sea.

The book itself is very well written and follows a logical progression. The only drawback is Keegan's obvious British bias. Granted for most of the time period covered "Britania ruled the waves", but I felt he did not give due credit to other nation's contributions. All in all however, it is an excellent book and a must read for anyone interested in naval history or military history in general.

This was a book, cohorts asserted, that was certain to disappoint those smitten with aircraft carriers and battleships. After all, Keegan's central conclusion about the evolution of the capital ship (which will not be revealed here) seems anathema to those who have devoted their lives to surface warfare.

However, `The Price of Admiralty'- with its soaring prose, penetrating gaze, and inescapable logic - is a classic in the canon of naval history. Keegan is an unconventional historian who offers an original thesis on naval warfare not by assessing the gains of victorious navies, but rather through the emerging trends in each era. In this sense, it is more than straight history. `Admiralty' is a compass point for the future.

Keegan explores the meaning of the term `command of the seas' and strives to discern whether any navy throughout history could lay claim to it. The influence of technology on the outcome of the four major battles covered in the book - Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway, and the Battle of the Atlantic - is demonstrated, to great effect.

Perhaps the most important contribution of `The Price of Admiralty' is its implicit exhortation to think beyond the present and into the future. Through the examples of four naval engagements, Keegan demonstrates the grasp governments had on developing technology, and how this affected war aims. Keegan's conclusions point to the necessity of `thinking outside of the box' and applying the emerging technological trends to war on the high seas. Have we run aground on outdated and outmoded strategy? Or will we think ahead to battles not yet fought, and train future captains in forward-thinking tactics?

This is a remarkable book and a worthy successor to the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan.