My excellent nephew gave me, in addition to a jewel-like small do-nothing steam engine, a book of serious history for my birthday now a couple of months ago.
Ben Wilson's 'Empire of the Deep - The Rise and Fall of the British Navy' is almost a great work of history. Goes from Saxon and Viking times to the very recent past, in great detail, with inevitably a huge amount of background political history.
Wilson isn't a great writer but he's a lot better than good enough for the job. If he has a fault it's that he harps rather on the pathetic showing made by the navy in its various forms in major battles, and on the blind luck that got it out of trouble (or sometimes, really really didn't). Of course he has a lot of irksome national myth and propaganda to dispel.
Great writer or not though, the book is a great work of history near enough. Of course I'm no historian but every chapter is full of surprises. I am reading slower and slower in the hope of never reaching the end.
I know there are people here interested in this sort of thing. Go for it, you won't regret it.
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Thanks for the tip.
>>I am reading slower and slower in the hope of never reaching the end<<
I did that with the Alan Clark Diaries and I'm now doing it with the biography by Ion Trewin.
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Thanks for the recommendation.
You are right, even better than a "can't put down" book is a "what is there left in life when I have finished it?" book.
But has it got a proper index? That's vital. When I read a book like that I want to be constantly jumping about looking things up, cross-referencing places, ships, people, etc.
Does it have lots of detailed footnotes?
I do hope it isn't just a glossy coffe-table book. Just a minimum of photos I hope, with acres of text?
The other irritating thing is a map that doesn't mark all the places described in the text.
Just looked it up on Amazon - I think it's a must for my Christmas list.
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Wed 13 Nov 13 at 12:03
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670 pp of text, three or four groups of photos among them; comprehensive bibliography and index, plenty of footnotes, a number of sketch maps in the text. People's standards vary on all these things, and nothing is ever perfect, but I don't think you'll be disappointed CP.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 13 Nov 13 at 13:25
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As Abraham Lincoln said when asked his opinion of a book "People who like this sort of book will find this the sort of book they like".
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I thought that was W H Auden... ;-)
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My source (Book of Quotes) attributes it to Lincoln
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Really great book - Mike Hannon
