Jacques Mordal (1910–1980)

The title is wrong as it covers nothing before the Greeks and nothing outside of Europe outside of the Twentieth Century. Having said that it's coverage of the last thousand years of European naval history is amazing. Written by a Frenchman it gives the French a coverage that is so often neglected in English. But he writes of French defeats just as well as he does of French victories. I was quite impressed with his knowledge, little tidbits of information are scattered throughout the book and it's obvious that he knows more than he can fit in. Even though this was written in the 1950's I highly recommend this book.… (more)