Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #764792 in Books
• Published on: 1994-08-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 568 pages

From Library Journal
Baer (U.S. Naval War Coll.) takes what could have been a dry topic-the policy history of the U.S. Navy-and turns it into interesting reading. He reviews the development of, and the problems inherent in, the policy decisions that shaped the U.S. Navy and, in turn, other naval powers. The book follows navy policy makers as they decide what the principal focus of the U.S. Navy will be and then determine the proper makeup of the fleet in order to ensure that the policy be carried out. One fascinating section involves the struggle to determine which branch, the Air Force or Navy, would control the nuclear weapons carried onboard navy vessels. With the strong focus on the policy history of the navy, this book would be valuable for libraries with strong naval sciences and history collections.
Terry Wirick, Erie Cty., Lib. System, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Midwest Book Review
One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U. S. Navy 1890-1990 is a powerfully argued, object history of the modern U. S. Navy explaining how the Navy defined its purpose in the century after 1890. It relates in detail how the Navy formed and reformed its doctrine of naval force and operations around a concept articulated by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan - a concept of offensive sea control by a battleship fleet and (new to America) the need to build and maintain an offensive battle fleet in peacetime. The growth of a Soviet sea force in the 1970s and 1980s revived the moribund sea power doctrine, but the Navy's bid for strategic leadership failed in the face of the war-avoidance policy of the Cold War. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Navy finally retired Mahan's doctrine that the defeat of the enemy fleet was the Navy's primary objective. One Hundred Years of Sea Power is a history of how a war-fighting organization responded (in doctrine, strategy, operations, preparedness, self-awareness, and force structure) to radical changes in political circumstance, technological innovation, and national needs and expectations.

Review
“A fine book: meticulous, judicious, incisive. It is a book to which the conventional exaggerations—“must” reading, relevant, if you’re only going to read one book on the subject, etc.—actually may be said to apply. . . . It is a study of the interactions of technology, bureaucracy, politics and culture, of how an institution adapts, or fails to adapt, to changing conditions. As such, the book belongs on a lot of desks at the Pentagon.”—Washington Times

“Baer takes what could have been a dry topic—the political history of the modern U.S. Navy—and turns it into interesting reading.”—Library Journal

“This is clearly one of the two or three most important works in American naval history published in the last decade; it has the potential to become a classic in the field. Well researched and carefully nuanced, it provides a distinctive perspective on the evolving historical relationship between national interest and national politics on the one hand and naval power on the other. Not only is this a significant contribution to scholarship—one that will critically influence how historians and political scientists think about American naval power—it is an enormously readable work. Baer writes beautifully, and he has organized his material effectively. The book is fully accessible to anyone interested in naval history.”—Edward Rhodes, Rutgers University