At times the literary scholar's fascination with creating terms and making categoriesthough a necessary tool of critical work-can be befuddling to the non-specialist: ironically too technological! to navigate, for example, between the authorial tools of "performing description," "gripping description," and "transforming description." Yet Cohen does not allow you to get too fogged in. The course of The Novel and the Sea is careful, logical, and builds on itself-plank by plank. The Novel and the Sea is a brilliant work ofliteraryscholarship and an important book to the studies ofliterature of the sea. Cohen's work might better be titled for an earlier century: The Extraordinary, Remarkable, Compleat, Artful Life and Times of the Salty Ytirn, Or The Mariner-Novelist. RICHARD]. KING, PHD Mystic, Connecticut
On Seas Contested: lbeSeven GreatNavies of the Second World lVtlr by Vincent P. O'Hara, W David Dickson, and Richard Worth (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010, 336pp. illus, ISBN 978-1-59114-6469; $39.95hc) In terms of scope and scale, the Second World War ranks as the largest naval struggle in history. While one can find many works on campaigns on either the Atlantic or Pacific wars, specific accounts of naval battles, or biographies of key commanders, the editors of On Seas Contested: The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War aim to fill a specific void in the historiography. This work evaluates the US Navy, the Royal Navies of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, the Soviet VoennoMorskoi Flot, France's Marine Nationale, the German Kriegsmarine, Japan's Nihon Kaigun, and the Italian Regia Marina. Every navy has a separate chapter devoted to it, written by subject matter experts. Each author provides a brief history and background and then delves into a detailed examination of the navy's organization and material, by analyzing factors such as command structure, doctrine, ships and aircraft, weapon systems, and infrastructure. Each chapter then concludes with an assessment of the navy's wartime evolution. While the approach can be formulaic at times and some areas are not as extensive as others , the structure does provide a means to rapidly compare and contrast the opposing Beets.
SEA HISTORY 136, AUTUMN 2011
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"f A m <' r i ca GALVESTON'S THE ELISSA TI IE TALL SJ llP OF TEXAS by Kurt D. Voss All proceeds from this pictorial history benefit the ELISSA preservation fund.
Published by Arcadia Publishing and Galveston Historical Foundation $21.99. 128 pages, 200 photographs Autographed copies available at (409) 763-1877, or online at:
www.tsm-elissa.org Authors Vincent P. O'Hara, W David performance of the Soviet submarine fleet and Dickson, and Richard Worth hoped to ¡how the arrival of several British submarines rectify two "deeply rooted problems" in in the fall of 1941 influenced them to the historiography of these topics. The alter their flawed tactics and doctrines. On Seas Contested fills a noticeable first problem underscores the differences of the navies rather than focusing on their void in naval history. The few footnotes are superficial similarities. In particular, they offset by a detailed bibliography, along with aimed to highlight such matters as tradition, extensive charts, tables, and pictures. The lack doctrine, and national objectives. Second, of a conclusion or summation by the editors because many scholars could not, or would is perhaps the only drawback in this work, not, delve into the literature on the Japanese, but the reader will come away with a much German, Italian , French and Soviet fleets, better understanding of the inner workings they hoped to mitigate the Anglo-American of each of the Seven Great Navies. SALVATORE R. MERCOGLIANO, PHD bias in most histories of the Second World Buies Creek, North Carolina War. This is readily apparent in the chapters on the lesser-known national navies. John Jordan's essay on the Marine Nationale A Civil lVtlr Gunboat in Pacific lVtlters: discusses France's plans to fight a naval war Life on Board USS Saginaw by Hans that never materialized because of the rapid Konrad Van Tilburg (University of Florida collapse of its army. Enrico Cernushi and Press, Gainesville, 2010, 378pp, ISBN 978Vincent O'Hara build on the latter's Struggle 0-8130-3516-1; $69.95hc) This chronicle of the Saginaw depicts for the Middle Sea (2009) in destroying the harsh imagery of past historians, who viewed the history of the ship from construction the conduct of the Regina Marina through to destruction and concludes with her the prism of Mahan's decisive naval battle rediscovery in 2003. The warship had a thesis. Finally, the essay about the least known diverse career, serving throughout the Pacific of the navies, the Voenno-Morskoi Flot, is during a relatively short, ten-year existence. perhaps the most insightful of the seven. The narrative, however, is much more than a Stephen McLaughlin discusses the poor story of a Civil War-era gunboat and delves
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