English/British Naval History to 1815

[Berthier]

English/British Naval History to 1815 A guide to the literature
http://www.amazon.com/English-Britis...istory+to+1815

I discovered this book quite by accident and picked it up for a steal so thought I would review it for others who may be interested so they can start their search if it interests them. Published by Praeger under their Bibliographies and Indexes in Military Studies, number 15 in 2004 the volume runs to 875 pages.

Ok, sound really boring, what is it? What it is, is an annotated bibliography, an exhaustive account of published material relating to British naval history with notes on almost every entry and it includes naval fiction!

How do I use it, why would I want to? Lets say you want to find out more about the handling of naval prizes in the Age of Sail. First look at Chapter 15, which covers this amongst other items, there is a page on the principle sources of information for this topic and you can look up the individual entries in the main body for a short discussion on each item. Alternatively if you know what you want you can look it up in the index and go the listing straight away.

The amount of references is staggering and although most may have no interest in a book of this kind, for anyone wanting to do research on any topic however obscure in the British Naval History field to 1815, this is a fantastic starting point.

The book is broken into sections and a brief breakdown follows to give you an overview of the huge scope of this volume.

PART 1 Chapters 1-22

Chapter 1
Historical Background and overview

Chapter2
Purpose, scope, format and features

Chapter 3
General references
Bibliographies, naval encyclopedias and biographies, chronologies, statistics, dissertations & theses

Chapter 4
Official archives & depositories
Libraries
Museums
Institutions, Organizations, Associations and Societies
Conferences & Symposia
Journals & Periodicals

Chapter 5
Proto Naval Historians
Earliest Quasi-Professionals
Professors as Historians
The Current Leaders
The Next Generation
Other naval Historinas
Writing Naval History

Chapter 6
When & who
The pre-eminent histories
Earliest histories of the English/British Navy
Illustrated histories
The Great battles Approach
General Naval Histories
The Age of Fighting Sail
The Navy, Empire, Europe and European hegemony
The Sea, the Ocean, Seafarers and Regions
Other English/British and Foreign Forces
Pertinent General Histories
The State of English/British Naval History

Chapter 7
Chronological Periods: Naval Wars and Prominent Battles (from Roman Britain to Napoleonic Wars)

Chapter 8
Special Emphasis
- Nelson
- Bligh

Chapter 9
Other personalities and Officers
- The Profession of Naval Officer
- Listing of the greats
- The role of the Monarchy
- Prominent Personalities (16 listed)
- Miscellaneous

Chapter 10
The human resources: Te lower Deck

Chapter 11
Warships
- General surveys
- Navy Lists
- Individual ships and ship types
- Galleys, Gallasses and Galleons
- The ship of the line
- Frigates
- Shipbuilding and ship models

Chapter 12
Piracy, Plunder and Privateering
- Privateers
- France and guerre de course
- Piracy
- Smuggling and piracy in England
- The Caribbean and piracy
- Barbary Corsairs

Chapter 13
The Navy, State building and the Military Revolution

Chapter 14
Administration, Logistics, Victualling, Shipbuilding, Dockyards and Naval Ports
- The Admiralty
- Administration
- Administrators
- Shipbuilding, Naval architecture and Naval Architects
- Technological Advances
- Timber and the wooden walls
- The Ordnance Office and Naval Gunnery
- Logistics, Victualling and the Transport Service
- The Dockyards
- Naval Ports and Bases
- Patronage, "Interest" and Corruption

Chapter 15
The Law of the Sea, Admiralty Courts and the Prize Process

Chapter 16
Strategy, Tactics, Communications, Intelliogence and Amphibous Operations
- Sea Power
- Naval Strategy
- Naval Tactics
- A perennial Fear: Invasion
- Trade, Defense of Commerce and Imperial Defense
- Maritime Insurance
- Communications
- Intelligence
- Amphibious Warfare

Chapter 17
Exploration, Discovery, Navigation, Cartography and Science

Chapter 18
Nautical Archaeology

Chapter 19
Nautical Dictionaries

Chapter 20
Nautical Fiction

Chapter 21
Art, Literary products, the Media and Cyberspace

Chapter 22
Gaps and research needed

PART 2 Descriptive lists

Journals and periodicals
Associations and Societies
Museums
Publishers and Publication Series
Replicas
Monuments and Memorials
Lectures and Awards
Fictional Heroes of the Nelson era

PART 3 Annotated Bibliography
(pages 375-798)

Appendices
List of pertinent Masters Theses
List of Publications of the Navy Records Society

Author-person index

Subject index

[Cmmdre]

Thank you Daniel this looks like a real treasure trove of information.