A History of the Royal Navy: Empire and imperialism

摘要

Part of the wider series commissioned by the National Museum of the Royal Navy, this volume differs with the majority of the collection by not focusing on a particular period or war, but instead on the relationship between the navy and empire. Spence not only attempts to cover the navy's expansionist role on land and sea, 'from the earliest days of colonisation to the present-day Commonwealth' but 'also the ideological and cultural influence it exerted for both the coloniser and colonised'. It is a huge undertaking, especially in a volume of 256 pages, yet is a worthy endeavour.