compared with the opinions of those familiar with other navies. Chapters cover vessels from battleships and cruisers to submarines and escorts, and include modernization, wartime dam age, production, and repair, concluding with a disquisition on "What is Good D esign." Interspersed tables support the text; readers will also appreciate the illustrations with captions that carry the narrative forward. O ther details are covered in appendices covering naval arms limitation treaties and other co nstraints on the design of ships. T his book completes an important quarter of volumes which elegantl y present the development of British warship design from 18 15 to 194 5 and deserves careful reading. KEVlN
J. FOSTER
National Mariti me Initiative, N PS Washington D C
Prince Henry "the Navigator": A Life, by Peter Russell (Yale U niversity Press, New Haven CT, 2000, 460pp, illus, appen, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-300-08233-9 ; $3 5hc) Writing a biography when the subj ect has been dead fo r mo re than 500 years is a fo rmidable challenge; doing so when there is virtually no bard, direct, detailed evidence concerning the individual's o pinions, emotions or conduct is substantially more diffic ul t. In the case of Prince H en ry, the evidence is so scarce we don't even know what he looked like, as art historian s h ave challenged the accuracy of the single image char had long been identified as H en ry. As a resul t, Peter Russell's exhaustive research has yielded nor a full-color word portrait of the fa med Portuguese sponsor of African exploration, bur a scholarly and carefull y co nstructed charcoal sketch. H e h as been fo rced to fill many gaps with speculation and inference based upon generic data about life in the late Middle Ages. Ir is clear that Prince H enry was a complex and contradicto ry figure. A champion of virtuous p rinciples and chivalry, h e could also be a calculating and unscrupulo us politi cal manipulator. Despite his association with navigation and seaborne exploration, he was not a mariner and had only a minimum of coastal sailing experience. Yer he was a methodical planner and organizer of oceanic discovery and colonization. H e was nor above lying to popes or justifying slaveiy as an opportuni ty fo r its victims to become enlightened Christians.
SEA HISTORY 96, SPRING 200 l
The book is not easy to read, being littered with obscure terms and offhand dismissals of complex issues . (Russell says the myth ofHenry' s school of navigation at Cape Sagres "is now entirely discredited" without furth er explanation.) The author ass umes broad understanding of medieval history and socio-geographic entities and instituti ons. Better charrs would help amplify the text, and the chapter on caravels, whose sailing characteristics played a crucial role in African exploration, is disappointing in its lack of detail. This academically oriented boo k has only limited value fo r the reader whose interests stress the m aritime aspects of history.
Quality Facsimiles The most detailed and celebrated autobiographical account of a solo circumnavigation of the globe in the age of sail.
Sa.ilin Atone Around the
CAPT. H AROLD J. SUTPHEN
Kilmarnock, Virginia
Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare: From the Bounty to Safety 4,162 Miles Across the Pacific in a Rowing Boat, by John T oohey (HarperC ollins, N ew York NY, 1999, 2 11 pp, illus, maps, ISBN 0-0601 9532-0; $24hc) Along with the revisionist mutiny-onthe-Bounty histories has come a cottage industry of charac ter analysis. This book is one of the most readable of rhe genre. Toohey's Bligh is not quite Charles Laughto n nor Trevor H oward, nor even Anthony H opkins. But one still wouldn't want to follow this Bligh into the South Seas. At the age of 22, Bligh was C ook's subaltern on the great man 's 1776 voyage to death at Kealakekus Bay in the H awaiian Islands. This, writes Toohey, was a lifedefining moment for Bligh. Understanding that experience, he says, explains much of Bligh 's fussiness, his pedantry, his passion for detail , and his intense perso nal sense that the "enemy," whatever or whoever it might be, was always present. D espite navigational and organizational genius, Bligh was his own worst enemy. T he Bligh touch contributed to nor only the Bounty mutin y but also to insubordination in the open boat in which he and the others put off the Bounty crossed the Pacific, and to near mutiny in Java as his ragtag group inched its way toward salvation. With one brief exception (serving with distinction with Nelson at Copenhagen), Toohey describes Bligh's later life as one of self-doubt and profess ional and familial turmoil. His first mission following the Bounty inquiry was a fa iled expedition
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