Reviews Strategy and the Sea: Essays in Honour ofJohn B. Hattendorf, edited by N. A. M. Rodger, J. Ross Dancy, Benjamin Darnell, and Evan Wilson (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, 2016, 303pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 978-178327-098-9; $120hc) This celebrated volume is a festschrift, a collection of academic essays contributed by a number of people to honor an eminent scholar. In this instance, Oxford University's All Souls College organized a conference in 2014 to mark the retirement of internationally acclaimed naval historian Dr. John B. Hattendorf, who until recently held the Admiral Ernest J. King Chair ofNaval Strategy at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. John Hattendorf, one of the most prolific and profound of contemporary American naval historians, has written or edited more than forty books and hundreds of articles, essays, and book reviews on naval history and strategy during a career spanning more than fifty years. His forte is a historical approach to complex strategic issues involving the roles of navies in the modern era. Ir is fitting that the eighteen scholars participating in this festschrift are well-established in the field of naval history. They have drawn on their own studies to present topics from British, Danish, Durch, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, and United States naval history that complement Hattendorf's outstanding contributions to the history of maritime and naval strategy. These essays delve into a broad spectrum of factors that can enable or frustrate a government's ability to carry out its naval strategy. These include geography, access to natural resources; financial policy; recruitment, training, and management of officers and enlisted personnel; logistical support; interservice rivalries; polirical influence; offensive/defensive operational strategies; and the quality of decisionmaking at the highest level. In his introduction, N. A. M. Rodger remarks that, in essence, strategists contemplating the use of sea power must think about naval and military operations in advance and define naval goals in order to achieve an understanding not only of how naval action can form the foundation for a successful cam-
SEA HISTORY 158, SPRING 2017
paign, but also an understanding of their navy's capabilities. Readers who can obtain this rare-and expensive-volume will have the opportunity to appreciate the work of scholars Carla Rahn Philips, Olivier Chaline, Jaap R. Bruijn, Roger Knight, Paul Kennedy, Werner Rahn, Andrew Lambert, James Goldrick, and Geoffrey Till, to name only a few of the fine historians who contributed to this well-deserved academic homage to John Hattendorf. WILLIAM S. DUDLEY, PttD Easton, Maryland
Privateers ofthe Revolution: War on the New Jersey Coast, 1775-1783 by Donald Grady Shomette (Schiffer Publ., Atglen, PA, 2016, 447pp, illus, maps, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 978-0-7643-5033-7; $34.99hc) Don Shomerre has written the consummate reference on American privateersboth Patriot and Loyalist-who sailed the waters between Boston and the Virginia Capes during the American War for Independence. This tome is much more than just a reference book, it is the story of the players in the struggle for independence whose major participants were the men and the ships of the private armed fleer. The waters between New York Harbor and Cape Henlopen in Delaware saw the lion's share of the action, and the ports along the New Jersey coast-now summer vacation destinations-were hotbeds of the insurrection, busy with prizes being unloaded and their goods sold. In the interest of full disclosure, this reviewer has lived on and sailed in the very waters covered in the book for many years, and I found the descriptions of the inlets from the rime (most of which no longer exist), the harbors, and coas tal towns riveting. There is incredible detail offered-in some cases it's actually overwhelming-but the level of research and the completeness with which Mr. Shomerte tells his story is stunning. And it only took him forty years! Tracking down commissions, both Continental and State, numbering over 1,700 from the mid-Atlantic and another 1,000 from New England, must have been daunting; the privateers sailing under letters of marque were not only manned and sailed by the Patriots. Indeed, the British offered
commissions to Loyalists to attack coastal towns and enemy privateers, recapture prizes, burn warehouses at the homeports of many of the privateers, and lay waste to the villages. Shomette derails the conflicts between individual colonies and the Continental government over who should issue commissions and who would be compensating the crews and in what magnitude. Correspondence, newspaper articles, and private memos are reproduced in the book and add to the depth of the reader's experience. Some of the stories of individual cruises were fascinating, reading more like a really good yarn than a reference. The volume also covers the political scene and relevant shoreside activities, including the infamous hanging of colonial officer and hero (at least in New Jersey) Joshua Huddy in retaliation for the shooting of Loyalist Phillip White (yes, a direct antecedent of this reviewer!) in 1782. Shomette also dwells on the prison ship jersey anchored off Brooklyn, in which were held hundreds of captured privateer crews in disgracefully awful conditions; indeed,
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