Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- John B. Hattendorf – A Transatlantic Tribute
- Introduction
- 1 Spanish Noblemen as Galley Captains: A Problematical Social History
- 2 Strategy Seen from the Quarterdeck in the Eighteenth-Century French Navy
- 3 Danish and Swedish Flag Disputes with the British in the Channel
- 4 Reconsidering the Guerre de Course under Louis XIV: Naval Policy and Strategic Downsizing in an Era of Fiscal Overextension
- 5 British Naval Administration and the Lower Deck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 6 British Naval Administration and the Quarterdeck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 7 The Raison d’Être and the Actual Employment of the Dutch Navy in Early Modern Times
- 8 British Defensive Strategy at Sea in the War against Napoleon
- 9 The Offensive Strategy of the Spanish Navy, 1763–1808
- 10 The Influence of Sea Power upon Three Great Global Wars, 1793–1815, 1914–1918, 1939–1945: A Comparative Analysis
- 11 The Evolution of a Warship Type: The Role and Function of the Battlecruiser in Admiralty Plans on the Eve of the First World War
- 12 The Royal Navy and Grand Strategy, 1937–1941
- 13 The Atlantic in the Strategic Perspective of Hitler and his Admirals, 1939–1944
- 14 The Capital Ship, the Royal Navy and British Strategy from the Second World War to the 1950s
- 15 ‘No Scope for Arms Control’: Strategy, Geography and Naval Limitations in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s
- 16 Sir Julian Corbett, Naval History and the Development of Sea Power Theory
- 17 The Influence of Identity on Sea Power
- 18 Professor Spenser Wilkinson, Admiral William Sims and the Teaching of Strategy and Sea Power at the University of Oxford and the United States Naval War College, 1909–1927
- 19 Naval Intellectualism and the Imperial Japanese Navy
- 20 History and Navies: Defining a Dialogue
- 21 Teaching Navies Their History
- Afterword
- A Bibliography of Books, Articles and Reviews Authored, Co-authored, Edited or Co-edited by John B. Hattendorf, 1960–2015
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
21 - Teaching Navies Their History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- John B. Hattendorf – A Transatlantic Tribute
- Introduction
- 1 Spanish Noblemen as Galley Captains: A Problematical Social History
- 2 Strategy Seen from the Quarterdeck in the Eighteenth-Century French Navy
- 3 Danish and Swedish Flag Disputes with the British in the Channel
- 4 Reconsidering the Guerre de Course under Louis XIV: Naval Policy and Strategic Downsizing in an Era of Fiscal Overextension
- 5 British Naval Administration and the Lower Deck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 6 British Naval Administration and the Quarterdeck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 7 The Raison d’Être and the Actual Employment of the Dutch Navy in Early Modern Times
- 8 British Defensive Strategy at Sea in the War against Napoleon
- 9 The Offensive Strategy of the Spanish Navy, 1763–1808
- 10 The Influence of Sea Power upon Three Great Global Wars, 1793–1815, 1914–1918, 1939–1945: A Comparative Analysis
- 11 The Evolution of a Warship Type: The Role and Function of the Battlecruiser in Admiralty Plans on the Eve of the First World War
- 12 The Royal Navy and Grand Strategy, 1937–1941
- 13 The Atlantic in the Strategic Perspective of Hitler and his Admirals, 1939–1944
- 14 The Capital Ship, the Royal Navy and British Strategy from the Second World War to the 1950s
- 15 ‘No Scope for Arms Control’: Strategy, Geography and Naval Limitations in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s
- 16 Sir Julian Corbett, Naval History and the Development of Sea Power Theory
- 17 The Influence of Identity on Sea Power
- 18 Professor Spenser Wilkinson, Admiral William Sims and the Teaching of Strategy and Sea Power at the University of Oxford and the United States Naval War College, 1909–1927
- 19 Naval Intellectualism and the Imperial Japanese Navy
- 20 History and Navies: Defining a Dialogue
- 21 Teaching Navies Their History
- Afterword
- A Bibliography of Books, Articles and Reviews Authored, Co-authored, Edited or Co-edited by John B. Hattendorf, 1960–2015
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
The last chapter by James Goldrick has made a number of important points. First, it stressed that it is wholly appropriate for this book to end on the subject of how best to bring their history home to navies because it is so important both for them and for the historians who produce it. It argued that history helps explain to navies what they are for and to some extent at least how they should set about their business. Second, navies need to be receptive to the past, to preserve and process the records (or what these days passes for records) of what they have done to build a bank of experience for the future. They need to nurture the declining number of long-serving professional practitioners who actually hadthat experience and are willing to talk about it if they only had the encouragement to do so, and the appropriate outlets (neither of which, as an aside, I believe they currently do).
Naval historians can help in all this of course, but it is good to be reminded of some of the things that historians must do in order to perform that function effectively. They should think of things ‘in the round’ – to pay due regard to context and to avoid narrow fixations on mono-causal explanations. They need to understand the technological and logistical realities, what it is actually like to beat sea. Hence the particular value of ex-sailors (like James Goldrick himself, and indeed John Hattendorf) who are also historians. They also need to avoid unconscious hindsight and to sympathise with their subjects who clearly could not enjoy its advantages.
The chapter ended with the encouraging conclusion that all this can be done and that properly encouraged, proper history can ‘stick’ amongst the barbarians. This argument could go further. My own experience at the Royal Naval Colleges of Dartmouth and Greenwich and the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham is that the ‘barbarians’ actually quite often likebeing ‘stuck’ with naval history, provided it is ‘what it says on the tin’ – namely real, honest objective analysis of the naval past, not a threadbare academic covering for proselytising. We historians are pushing on an open door, or should be.
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- Information
- Strategy and the SeaEssays in Honour of John B. Hattendorf, pp. 242 - 251Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2016