Sailing True North
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Viviano, Frank. “China’s Great Armada.” National Geographic, July 2005. This is a visually stunning and historically excellent overview of his life and voyages, including high-resolution maps and pictures.
Chapter III. A Pirate and a Patriot: Sir Francis Drake
Corbett, Julian. Sir Francis Drake. New York: AMS Press, 1890. This is a glowing account of Drake and his life from Sir Julian Corbett, one of the great thinkers in the British navy in the nineteenth century.
Kelsey, Harry. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. Kelsey provides a scathing take on Sir Francis’s life and exploits. It sometimes gets too personal and judges the rogue on modern morals rather than “grading on a curve” reflecting the period in which Drake sailed. It does, however, do an excellent job of providing many small but fascinating details of his actions—many of which do not make it into the mythology of Drake. This is the best overview of a complicated and controversial life.
Wilson, Derek. The World Encompassed: Drake’s Great Voyage 1577–1580. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. This provides a sweeping operational account of Drake’s circumnavigation with a great amount of nautical detail. It features illustrations of how various ship’s crews operated in the age of sail, giving a lay audience greater context for the perils of the voyage, and an appreciation for the immense challenges Drake faced in simply getting from point A to point B.
Chapter IV. The Band of Brothers: Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Horatio Nelson
Callo, Joseph F. Nelson Speaks: Admiral Lord Nelson in His Own Words. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2001. Not an overly verbose man, Admiral Nelson had a voice that is well captured in this slim volume. It serves as a highly effective and well-organized version of the very thorough collection of Nelson’s writing put together by Sir Nicholas Nichols in the nineteenth century.
Forester, C. S. Lord Nelson. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1929. A very readable version of the admiral’s life by the author of the Horatio Hornblower series of novels about a character very loosely based on Nelson.
Hibbert, Christopher. Nelson: A Personal History. London: Viking, 1994.
Howarth, David. Trafalgar: The Nelson Touch. New York: Atheneum, 1969. A highly readable deep dive into the battle that ultimately cemented Nelson’s “immortal memory.”
Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain. Boston: Little, Brown, 1899. An examination of the strategic impact of sea power as channeled through a national hero, by America’s greatest maritime thinker and writer.
Nichols, Sir Nicholas Harris. The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson. London: Henry Colburn, 1846. An in-depth, classic collection of the writings of the admiral. The man himself in significant detail.
Oman, Carola. Nelson. London: Hodder & Stoughton Limited, 1947. The standard mid-twentieth-century assessment.
Sontag, Susan. The Volcano Lover. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992. A moody and atmospheric but gorgeously written novel about the ill-fated love triangle of Lord Nelson, Emma Hamilton, and her husband Sir William Hamilton, a scholar of volcanoes.
Southey, Robert. The Life of Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson. London: John Murray, 1813. A hero-worshipping contemporary portrait, but useful to understand the sociological sources of the reverence in which the admiral is held.
Sugden, John. Nelson: The Sword of Albion. London: Henry Holt, 2013; and Nelson: A Dream of Glory: 1758–1797. London: Henry Holt, 2012. An extensive and deeply researched two-volume work regarded by contemporary naval historians as a classic in its balance and depth.
Tracy, Nicholas. Nelson’s Battles: The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1996. A focus on the tactical and operational acumen of the admiral.
Chapter V. The Influencer: Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan
Armstrong, Benjamin, editor. 21st Century Mahan: Sound Military Conclusions for the Modern Era. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013. This book has three attributes rarely ascribed to Mahan anymore: it is brief, readable, and relevant. By presenting an edited selection of Mahan’s shorter writings with well-wrought contextual introductions, this slim volume makes the skeleton of Mahan’s thought accessible to any reader.
Lehman, John. On Seas of Glory: Heroic Men, Great Ships, and Epic Battles of the American Navy. New York: Free Press, 2001. Written by a dynamic former secretary of the Navy who himself served in the Naval Reserve, this book provides a strong historical overview of the US Navy from its beginnings through the twentieth century—told, as the subtitle implies, through historical vignettes of key people, ships, and events. In addition to Mahan, this book contains brief biographies of Admirals Nimitz, Rickover, and Hopper, as well as some of their most important actions.
Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1987. While nonexperts need not read Mahan’s magnum opus in its entirety, it is worth picking up a copy at a local library or finding an excerpt online to get a feel for Mahan’s own writing.
Seager, Robert II. Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977. Published in a single paperback volume in 2017, this is probably the single best treatment of Mahan’s life and work. Working—and quoting—extensively from Mahan’s voluminous writings, this book combines biography and primary sources for a comprehensive understanding of the great naval strategist and writer.
Wimmel, Kenneth. Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet: American Sea Power Comes of Age. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 1998. A short, readable resource on one of the practical outcomes of Mahan’s writings, the “Great White Fleet” built during Theodore Roosevelt’s administration.
Chapter VI. Rum, Buggery, and the Lash: Admiral Lord John Arbuthnot Fisher
Fisher, John Arbuthnot, Admiral of the Fleet. Records. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Written by Fisher himself, this is an idiosyncratic “autobiography” to say the least. In places rambling, in others sharply realized, but always entertaining. And in the voice of the admiral himself, with all its charm, exuberance, and occasional childishness.
Gough, Barry. Churchill and Fisher: Titans at the Admiralty. London: Seaforth Publishing, 2017. This book is focused on a sliver of time, but beautifully illuminates the complex relationship of these two very complicated men.
Massie, Robert K. Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War. New York: Ballantine Books, 1991. Massie is a master of narrative history, and his earlier works on the Russian Empire are classics. In this volume he weaves together history, personality, and geopolitics into a seamless story with a highly accurate sense of the admiral.
Morris, Jan. Fisher’s Face: Or, Getting to Know the Admiral. New York: Random House, 1995. This short and atmospheric biography captures Fisher’s exotic personality and odd physicality well. Its anecdotes are sharply realized, and Jan Morris gives us a brief but clever portrait of Admiral Fisher.
Chapter VII. The Admiral’s Admiral: Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
Borneman, Walter R. The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—The 5-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea. Boston: Back Bay Books, 2013. A massive composite biography of the only fleet admirals in US history, this contemporary treatment works from familiar sources on Nimitz but provides essential detail on his working relationship with his peers.
Hornfischer, James D. The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944–1945. New York: Bantam, 2016. A fast-paced, easily read history of the climactic year of the central Pacific campaign. An excellent resource for understanding the integration of the US military services’ operations into truly “joint” warfare, as well as the different command styles of Halsey and Spruance at sea. Both campaign integration and the Halsey-Spruance dynamic illustrate Nimitz’s role in managing the war.
Potter, E. B. Nimitz. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1976. The definitive, authorize
d biography of America’s greatest naval hero. Potter, a longtime Naval Academy professor, draws on the admiral’s papers and many hours of interviews with the Nimitz family to construct this comprehensive (though surely somewhat sanitized) view of the admiral.
Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York: Vintage, 1985. A key resource for understanding the US Navy’s prewar planning, as well as the strategic and operational conduct of the war in the Pacific.
Chapter VIII. The Master of Anger: Admiral Hyman Rickover
Duncan, Francis. Rickover: The Struggle for Excellence. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2011. Balanced and concise, this biography picks up the thread of the Rickover legacy twenty-five years after his death.
Lehman, John E., Jr. Command of the Seas. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988. The introduction and first chapter, “Rickover and the Navy Soul,” is a short masterpiece on the difficult, stubborn, clever character of Hyman Rickover.
Oliver, Dave, Rear Admiral, US Navy (Ret.). Against the Tide: Rickover’s Leadership Principles and the Rise of the Nuclear Navy. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2014. This very laudatory study of Rickover’s leadership and management principles is written by a high-ranked and well-regarded naval officer who served directly under Admiral Rickover.
Polmar, Norman, and Thomas B. Allen. Rickover: Controversy and Genius: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. This is a balanced, in-depth effort by two serious naval historians, and includes priceless anecdotes throughout (including those about the infamous interviews to join the nuclear program). Completed as Rickover finished his more than six decades of naval service, this stands as the definitive early work on his legacy and life.
Chapter IX. The Angel of Change: Admiral Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt Jr.
Berman, Larry. Zumwalt: The Life and Times of Elmo Russell “Bud” Zumwalt, Jr. New York: Harper, 2012. A well-written, easy-to-read, comprehensive biography written about a decade after the admiral’s death. Somewhat laudatory but gives strong chronology and context of Zumwalt’s career.
Zumwalt, Elmo R., Jr. On Watch. New York: Quadrangle, 1976. Zumwalt’s autobiography, penned around his run for the Senate just a couple of years after he left the Navy. Very much a first-person perspective, and of a piece with the modern trend of tell-all books by just-retired officials, it is nevertheless invaluable for understanding how Zumwalt saw himself and his own career. The book is also interesting for its many excerpts of letters, memos, and other original documents from Zumwalt’s life.
Chapter X. Don’t Go Near the Water: Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
Beyer, Kurt W. Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010. Written by a fellow naval officer who was inspired to serve in the Navy by Grace Hopper, this book traces the early decades of the computer industry by following Grace Hopper’s journey through it. It rises above the clichés of “Amazing Grace” to give a fuller portrait.
Gilbert, Lynn, with Gaylen Moore. Grace Murray Hopper: Women of Wisdom. Self-published, 1981. Essentially an excerpt from a longer work by the author that puts the broad story of Grace Hopper into her own words.
Pelleschi, Andrea. Mathematician and Computer Scientist Grace Hopper. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 2016. A well-written children’s version of the story of Grace Hopper.
Williams, Kathleen Broome. Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2012. A traditional telling of the story of Grace Hopper, replete with anecdotes from her surviving family members, with a very personal feel to the writing.
Chapter XI. Resilience and the Modern Admiral
“Admiral William H. McRaven, USN: The Art of Warfare.” American Achievement Academy. www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/.
Fenn, Donna. “5 Tough Leadership Lessons from the Navy’s Top Female Commander.” Fortune. May 25, 2015.
Graves, Lucia. “For Michelle Howard, Saving Captain Phillips Is Her Least Impressive Accomplishment.” The Atlantic. May 15, 2015.
Mazzetti, Mark, et al. “SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines.” The New York Times. June 6, 2015.
Whitlock, Craig. “Adm. William McRaven: The Terrorist Hunter on Whose Shoulders Osama bin Laden Raid Rested.” The Washington Post. May 4, 2011.
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Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
Accidental Admiral, The (Stavridis), 254–55
Aegis combat detection systems, 248
Afghan War, 283–84
Agamemnon, HMS, 123
Agent Orange, 197, 205, 214
Aiken, Howard, 233, 234, 236, 237
Allen, John, 254, 255, 273
Al Qaeda, 275
ambition, of Nelson, 93
Andrić, Ivo, 49
anger, 188–91, 245
Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882, 127
Aquinas, Thomas, 106
arrogance, 273, 274
self-confidence versus, 20–21
Themistocles and, 20–21, 273
Artaxerxes, 16
Asquith, H. H., 133
Atalanta, HMS, 127
Athens
abandoning of, and burning by Persians, 11–12
fleet built by, 8–10
port of Piraeus commissioned by Themistocles, 7–8
Second Persian War and, 9–16
Themistocles exiled from, 16
Atomic Energy Commission, 176–77
attention spans, xii–xiii
Babel, Isaac, 97
Baker, James, 181
balance in life, 274–76
Barry, USS, 41, 77, 211–12, 273, 281–83, 285
battle cruisers, 132
Battles. See specific Battle
Bauer, Hermann, 174
Bednowicz, Eleonore, 183
Belgium, 102
belief in oneself. See subhead: self-confidence
Beresford, Charles, 132, 135
big-gun battleships, 132
bin Laden, Osama, 262, 265–66, 275–76
Bismarck, Otto von, 126
blind loyalty, dangers of, 246
Bloch, Richard Milton, 235, 236, 237
boldness, 70–72
of Drake, 70–71
of Navy SEALs, 72
post 9/11 ideas for restructuring Navy and, 71–72, 138, 270–71
Bolivar, Simón, 286–87
Bolt, Robert, 114
Bridge on the Drina, The (Andrić), 49
Broken April (Kadare), 49
Brooks, David, 286
bugs, computer, 236
Burke, Arleigh, 99
Byrd, Harry F., 213
calculated risk principle, 165
Calcutta, HMS, 123
calm demeanor, learning, 163–64
Cape St. Vincent, Battle of, 81–82
Captain, HMS, 81, 82
Captain Phillips (film), 58
Chafee, John, 207
character, xi–xix
ability to see oneself clearly and, xviii–xix
anger and, 188–91
balance in life and, 274–76
balancing being right with being a leader and, 21–22
compassion and, 219–20
courage, building, 65–67
creativity and (See creativity and innovation)
curiosity and, 141–42
decisiveness and (See decisiveness)
discretion and (See discretion)
empathy and, 45–46, 277–79
energy and, 139–40
failu
re, accepting, 22–23
honesty and, 276–77
humility and, 273–74
independence versus checking with command, finding balance between, 47–48
innovation and (See creativity and innovation)
inspire, ability to (See inspire, ability to)
justice, sense of, 279–80
leadership, distinguished, xv–xvi
loss of privacy and, xiii
loyalty and (See loyalty)
optimism and (See optimism)
organizational skills and (See organizational skills)
patriotism and (See patriotism)
perseverance and (See perseverance)
perspective and, 44, 284–86
resilience and (See resilience)
self-confidence and (See self-confidence)
self-examination and, 287
slow death of, xii–xiii
storytelling abilities and, xiv
team building skills and (See team building)
test of, xvii–xviii
tolerance and (See tolerance)
vision and (See vision)
work ethic and (See work ethic)
Chen Zuyi, 37
Chesapeake, HMS, 124
China
bureaucratic opposition to missions of Zheng He, 38–40
during Ming dynasty, 31–40
South China Sea, historical claims to, 30, 36, 40
See also Zheng He
Churchill, Winston, 16, 122, 129, 132–34, 268, 280, 283
Clark, Vern, 270