produced rhe usual m ixrure of heroes, villains, and ordinary folk who m ade spur-ofthe-momenr decisions with limited knowledge abour what was happening. The B ritish Raid on Essex is a captivating read and a fasci nating foo tnote concerning the W ar of 1812. It may also be a p ersuasive a rgument to change "Loser's D ay" to "Remember Pettipaug Day." Lours ARTHU R NO RTON West Simsbury, Connecticut
American Naval History, 1607-1865: Overcoming the Colonial Legacy by Jonatha n Dull (University of N ebraska Press, Lincoln, 201 2, 216pp, illus, notes, index, ISBN 978- 0-8 032-4052-0; $ 27.95hc) Aurhor Jonathan Dull is best known fo r his works on Benjamin Fran klin and the French navy during the p eriod of t he America n Revolution . It was the effort of Franklin that helped conv ince the court of K ing Lo uis XVI to enter the conflict a nd change rhe scope of that war into one spanning the globe, rhereby ch allenging the British Empire for domination on the high seas. Dull 's newest work is a co mpanion volume to his earlier book, The Age of the Ship ofthe Line: The B ritish and French Navies, 1650-1865 (2009). In this book, the autho r as ks t he questions: Why did it rake almost a century fo r the Uni ted States to build its firs t large navy, a nd what issues did it need to overcome? A m erica's ascension as a great nava l power coincides w ith o ther em erging states. German unification in 187 1 and the Japa nese M eiji Restoration of 1867-68 allowed these nations, along w ith the U ni ted States, to em erge as m ajo r n ava l fo rces a nd thereby challenge the British in the twe ntieth century. During the first half of the natio nal experience, the U n ited States existed as a minor naval power. Its wa rships were either virtually annihil ated in war, as in the case of the American Revolutio n, relega red to protecting its commerce as it did du ring the Quas i and Barbary wars, or driven from the seas and blockaded in port, as happened during the Wa r of 1812. This is not to say that rhe navy did no t win some key and decisive battles. However, it was not until the C ivil Wa r tha t the fo undations for modern A m erican naval power were established and the obstacles SEA HISTORY 148, AUTU MN 2014
to building a modern navy were overcome. To counter what Dull refers to as the colonial legacy, the nation h ad to confront iss ues such as localism and sectionalism , obsession w ith the frontier and territorial expa n sion , ave rsion to a stron g central government with the ability to levy and collect taxes, a nd a wea k industrial base. To tackle this thesis, he laid our a concise 125-page narrative th at is a detailed a nd in format ive history of the U nited States Navy. Covering nearly 25 0 yea rs in such an abbreviated fo rm at is a difficulr feat fo r a historian, but Dull is m as terful in developing a thought-provokin g hypothesis, a level of detail that is absent in many larger and m ore extensive works, and a clear and concise narrative that follows the subj ect from the colonial p eriod through a srudy of the C ivil Wa r. Ir is rhar las t event that proved the wa tershed to the transition of the Am erican navy from a minor naval power into a m ajo r force; even though it quickly lapses after the Civil W ar, the m echanism s we re in place for its eventual rise in the twe ntieth cenrury. In that last confl ag ration, the Confederacy inherited the nation's colonial legacy, particularly an underdeveloped economy and a weak central government, and it lacked a strong and vibra nt commercial sector-merchant m arine and infras trucrure-to draw upon. O n rhe Union side, ir was civilian leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln and Gideon W ells; naval personnel, including D avid Farrag ut, D av id D . Porter, and Andrew Foote; and industrialists Jam es Eads and Joh n E ricsson who reversed the previous trends by wea kening the power of the individual states, expanding American industry, a nd strengthenin g the role of th e federal government, thereby creating the underpinnings for the United States to emerge as a dominant naval power. This new perspective is both an excellent primer a nd, w ith over fifty pages of footnotes, a great addition to the historiography on A merican naval history. SA LVATORE
R. ME RCOGLIANO
Fuquay-Va rina, No rth Carolina
Preserving South Street Seaport. The Dream and Reality ofa New York Urban Renewal District by Jam es M . Lindgren
NMHS Book Sale! Our Flag Was Still There by W illiam H. White; The Skipper & the Eagle by Capt. Gordon M cGowan , USCG; The Peking Battles Cape Horn by Irving Johnson; A Dream of Tall ShipsHow New Yorkers Came Together to Save the Sailing-ship Waterfront, by Peter and N o rma Stanford; and m ore. C heck out prices and details online at www.seahistory.org.
MARITIME
BOOKS 1806 Laurel Crest Madison, Wisconsin 53 705-1065 (608) 238-SAIL FAX (608) 238-7249 Email: tuttlemaritime@charter.net http://tuttlemaritime.com Books about the Sea, Ship & Sailor Catalogue Upon Request
(New York U niversity Press, New York,
61