Andrew D. Lambert
Auteur van War at Sea in the Age of Sail
Over de Auteur
Andrew Lambert is Professor of Naval History at King's College, London.
Werken van Andrew D. Lambert
Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World (2018) 118 exemplaren
The Foundations of Naval History: John Knox Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession (1998) 6 exemplaren
Letters and Papers of Professor Sir John Knox Laughton, 1830-1915 (Publications of the Navy Records Society No.143) (2002) 5 exemplaren
21st Century Corbett: Maritime Strategy and Naval Policy for the Modern Era (21st Century Foundations) (2017) 3 exemplaren
Naval History 1850-present (The International Library of Essays on Military History) (v. 1 & v. 2) (2007) 1 exemplaar
Yorkshire Dales 1 exemplaar
Gerelateerde werken
Northern European Overture to War, 1939-1941: From Memel to Barbarossa (2013) — Medewerker — 6 exemplaren
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Lambert's central thesis is that a set of political beliefs (his political beliefs, I assume) that are centred on free trade, capitalism, democracy, British imperial nostalgia, and conservatism, can be linked with the historical concept of a "SeaPower". That concept is vaguely defined, unfortunately, but clearly you are a SeaPower if you trade overseas, have a fleet, and Lambert likes you. Primarily the concept of a SeaPower seems to be an attempt to give British exceptionalism a wider historical basis by looking for analogies, farfetched or not.
I would actually agree that some of the historical and philosophical links that Lambert tries to build have a probabilistic form of validity. They are not unique to him, either. For example, Ioanna Iordanou explores the same link between Venice's sea-trade economy and Venice's political and administrative system in her excellent book on Venice's Secret Service. But the difference is that she makes a strong effort to underpin her position with evidence. Lambert just makes claims. His book is a ratcheting series of assertions with way too few attempts to bring in some evidence to defend these claims. To the reader, this quickly becomes tedious.
Maybe we are supposed to takes his claims at face value because of Lambert's authority. He is no amateur, after all, but a professor of naval history at King's College with a substantial publication record. That seems hardly a sufficient reason to let him get away with an endless stream of assertions that are both poorly structured and repetitive. Moreover, some of them are outright bizarre. Lambert's fast summary of naval strategy in the 20th century fails to demonstrate much more than that strong opinions are an inadequate substitute for knowledge. Admittedly, Lambert is primarily a historian of the 19th century, but he should have known better.
This book is a mistake, then. Lambert is entitled to his views and he might have written a really interesting book about them. Probably it should have taken a lot more time, and some 300 pages less.… (meer)