One of John Keegan's weaker books due to the selection of the case studies and the comparative dearth of analysis. The choice of Trafalgar, Jutland, Midway and a WWII German submarine convoy attack guarantees wide readership but few insights. These events (apart from the odd submarine case) were atypical, once a century actions. It is also arbitrary if five chance minutes in the Midway case decide the issue. For completeness sake, he should have included the battle of Lepanto where the idea of ships as infantry fighting platforms was supplanted by gunnery (galleys vs. broadside cannon equipped galleasses). ( )

The third and least (after The Face of Battle and The Mask of Command) of the trilogy of books that established Keegan as a preemininent military historian. The case-study approach that worked so well in the preceding two books is on display again, this time with four naval battles: Trafalgar (1805), Jutland (1916), Midway (1942), and the Battle of the Atlantic (1940-44). The case studies are workmanlike, but they lack the detailed intensity of those in Face or the intimate scale of those in Mask. Too often, they feel like a once-over summary of the work of others. The inclusion of the U-boat war in the North Atlantic is also problematic: It's not a battle but a campaign, and--because it's undersea rather than surface warfare--it spoils the technological progression that Keegan traces from Trafalgar (wood/guns) to Jutland (steel/guns) to Midway (steel/airplanes). The Falklands (aluminum/missiles) would have been a more logical choice.

All that aside, Keegan writes with grace and insight, and even his lesser books (of which this is one) repay reading. Naval history specialists will find nothing new or startling here, even they can enjoy Keegan's retelling of familiar tales. ( )