THE
SAILOR’S
B O O K SH E L F Fifty Books to Know the Sea ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS, USN (RET.)
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NAVA L I N ST I T U T E P R E S S A N NA P O L I S , M A RY L A N D
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Praise for The Sailor’s Bookshelf “This book should be on every sailor's shelf. Admiral Stavridis's love of the sea and love of reading come through on every page.” —Tom Ricks, author, and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter “A fundamental task of developing a Sailor is learning how to pack a seabag. The shape of the bag has changed over centuries, but the size has remained small, restricting what we can take to sea. Our choices, what we put in the bag, can make all the difference in the voyage. Admiral Stavridis’ remarkable list of books and his insights offers wisdom to novice mariners and old salts alike. Everyone should find room in their seabags for this content!” —ADM Michelle Howard, USN (Ret.), former commander United States Naval Forces Europe No one knows the literature of the sea better [than Admiral Stavridis]. The selections on this 'sailor's bookshelf' will be a terrific resource for both old salts and newcomers to the world's oceans. It's an instant classic!” —ADM Harry Harris, USN (Ret.), former Commander, U.S. Pacific Command “Admiral James Stavridis knows the sea firsthand, has mastered maritime history, and always conveys its importance in a most compelling way. This collection charts a wonderful course for all who already share his passion for the sea and those ashore who wish to embrace the majesty of the oceans. Get underway and enjoy! You’ll be glad you did.” —ADM Jay L. Johnson, USN (Ret.), former Chief of Naval Operations “I've known Admiral James Stavridis for decades, and he deeply appreciates the sea as both a mariner and a naval officer. His keen intellect, warrior spirit and diplomatic prowess clearly qualify him as an expert judge of sea service prose by any measure. The fifty summaries of these classics are concise but very enlightening, and the individual choices of books are spot on. This sailor's bookshelf will reward any reader, whether an 'old salt' or a new Sailor straight out of boot camp.” —Master Chief Petty Officer Jim Herdt, USN (Ret.), former Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Admiral Stavridis, a leader in military, international affairs, and national security circles, shares his love of the sea and some of the sources of that affection. The Sailor's Bookshelf offers synopses of fifty books that illustrate the history, importance, lore, and lifestyle of the oceans and of those who “go down to the sea in ships.” Stavridis colors those descriptions with glimpses of his own service— “sea stories” in popular parlance—that not only clarify his choices but show why he is held in such high esteem among his fellow sailors. Some of the included titles are familiar to many, while others, are likely less well-known but are welcome additions to this encompassing collection. ADM James Stavridis, USN (Ret.), is currently Vice Chairman, Global Affairs of the Carlyle Group and chair of the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation. He served as Commander of U.S. Southern Command, with responsibility for all military operations in Latin America from 2006–9, led the NATO Alliance in global operations from 2009–13 as Supreme Allied Commander, and retired a four-star Admiral. Stavridis earned a PhD in international relations and is Dean Emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has published ten books and hundreds of articles in leading journals around the world.
To my parents who taught me to love reading, To my teachers who taught me to love writing, To my shipmates who taught me to love the sea, and To my wife and daughters who taught me to love life.
PREFACE I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking. —“Sea Fever” by John Masefield
I
have had three great passions in my life. The first and most important is my lovely wife, Laura, to whom this book is dedicated. I met Laura in Athens, Greece—after a long sea voyage to arrive there—in 1962, when I was eight years old and Laura was only three. While perhaps not literally love at first sight, over many years our relationship grew into the deepest of love stories. The arrival of two daughters and, at this writing, four grandchildren has only intensified my belief that love and marriage are at the center of my life. But it is the other two passions that are at the heart of this book. The second passion is one of the twin subjects of this volume: reading. From my earliest days, I’ve loved the feeling of holding a book in my hand (or even, today, of opening my Kindle). As I do so, I imagine the voyage upon which I am about to embark. It may be a work of historical fiction that will transport me to another time and place. The book before me may be a memoir that allows me access to the inner thoughts and deepest views of a famous historical figure. I may be about to cross a magical threshold and find myself in an entirely imagined vision of the xiii
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future of the planet. Or the book in my hand can be the launch of a journey to some heretofore unknown part of the earth. All of this began in earnest in my boyhood in the early 1960s while I was living with my family in Athens. Because there was no television accessible to a small American boy, I never developed the habit of watching the cartoons, situation comedies, and adventure shows that most young boys loved in those days. Instead, my mother, Shirley, would take me every week to the small but wellstocked English-language library at the U.S. Embassy, and we’d check out a stack of books. We also ventured to English-language bookstores in Greece, went to the small military exchange on the military base, and ordered books by mail from the United States. Every year on my birthday and Christmas, my principal gift would be a box of books. I’ve always believed that reading allows an individual to essentially expand their life every time they open a book, and that sense began when I was very young and continues to this day. The third passion in my life is the ocean. I first went to sea, and truly out of sight of land, in the summer of 1962 when my family embarked on the old cruise liner SS Constitution out of New York, bound for Athens. We stopped in Boston, then sailed across the Atlantic to Lisbon, Naples, and finally arrived in Athens. From the moment I felt the ship lurch under my feet, I had a sense that I was home. Since my father was a U.S. Marine combat infantry officer, I had at least some connection with the U.S. Navy, given the ties of the Marine Corps and its sister service, the Navy. Throughout the years we lived in Greece, where my father served at the embassy as the assistant naval attaché, the sea was everywhere. Greece is, of course, one of the ancient centers of seafaring, and our vacations in the country were always on the seacoast. We went often to the small village of Itea, located near what is today the Corinth Canal and serves as the coastal gateway to the famous shrine at Delphi. Much later, after I gained entrance to the U.S. Naval Academy with the idea of following in my father’s footsteps as a Marine infantry officer, I was sent to sea in the summer of 1972 as part of my training. After a midshipman completes his or her first year at the academy, they are typically assigned to a U.S. Navy warship for a two-month period of apprenticeship in the summer months. For me, that ship was USS Jouett (DLG 29), a beautiful and relatively new guided missile destroyer whose home port was San Diego. We arrived on the ship in late June, and almost
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immediately—after loading the midshipmen on board—set sail for Hawaii. It was a spectacular California summer evening, and as the sun began to sink into the calm Pacific waters, I reported to the bridge for my first watch under way. As I walked onto the bridge, I looked out on a red setting sun, beautiful light playing on the water, and felt the gentle rocking of the ship encountering the first swells of the open ocean as we cleared the San Diego channel outbound. I was like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus—I knew at that moment that I wanted to be a sailor. So I became a surface warfare officer and over the next forty years proudly sailed the world’s oceans as a naval officer. I have spent roughly a decade, day for day, on the deep ocean out of sight of land in the course of serving in destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers over the years. My time in command at sea remains a true-life highlight, and—although I missed my wife and daughters terribly during the course of many deployments—I loved my life at sea. And one of the principal enjoyments for me across all of those years was reading, sometimes in a small stateroom as a junior officer; on a couch in the wardroom after an evening watch; seated on a folding deck chair on a quiet Sunday at sea; in the more expansive stateroom of a commanding officer; in the captain’s chair on a bridge wing; and eventually in the grand quarters of a flag officer embarked in an aircraft carrier. This book is the result of the woven fabric of my life at sea with my endless love of books. I hope that by sharing this collection of fifty books—a true sailor’s bookshelf—I can introduce and communicate my passion for both the oceans and books. Today in my library at home in Florida, I have more than five thousand books. Laura, who knows well my affection for both books and the sea, would say it is a “gentle madness.” And as I walk by the rows of history, memoir, geography, oceanography, navigation, shiphandling, and fiction, they really do call out to me. Picking only half-a-hundred was a hard, hard set of choices, and many of my fellow sailors will be sad to discover that a favorite of theirs is not on this list. But I’ve tried hard to find the right balance between fiction and nonfiction, between oceans of the world, and between periods of history. Likewise, I’ve included some of the most fundamental texts that help sailors learn and hone their craft. Each book is introduced with a quote and a simple sentence or two as to why it was chosen. I’ve then briefly sketched out my own experience with the book, connecting it to my long life at sea. For each, I’ve tried to provide a concise snapshot of what the book contains and then concluded with a final thought to take
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away. For books as different as Moby-Dick and Naval Shiphandler’s Guide, the common thread is simple: these are books about the sea, with wisdom within their covers that will help anyone—whether a sailor or not—deepen their understanding and appreciation for the blue world that covers 70 percent of this planet. A love of the sea, and a true understanding of the oceans, cannot be learned simply by reading books. But first and foremost, my simple hope in this small volume is that I can introduce the maritime world, in all of its splendor and diversity, to readers who do not know it well. And I hope as well that seasoned sailors will find some new treasures on this list, perhaps refresh themselves on a classic they read many years ago, or even argue with me about a favorite work that does not appear in these pages or about my interpretation of one that does. It is a voyage well worth taking, and as you pick up this book, we shall become shipmates and take it together. Let’s get under way.
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