'This volume may be a landmark in the evolution of the field ... a carefully selected cross-section of the latest high grade academic research in the field of naval history, a description that the editors have stretched far beyond the old limits of ships, battles and sailors.'
Professor Andrew Lambert, King's College, London
'This first-class collection of essays follows the path of important works such as The Great Naval Game by Jan Ruger, editor of the foreword of the volume and whose research and insights reverberate through many of the mentioned contributions. All chapters cover a wide range of topics and make use of innovative approaches that might well be fruitfully applied to the study of cases beyond Britain. Overall, this book is an excellent addition to academic literature and an important contribution for scholars working in naval history and adjacent fields of research.'
European History Quarterly
Quintin Colville was Senior Curator: Research at Royal Museums Greenwich, and is Visiting Professor at the University of Portsmouth
James Davey is Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter
List of figures and tables
Notes on contributors
Introduction
Quintin Colville and James Davey
Part I Sociocultural analyses of the Royal Navy
1 Particular skills: warrant officers in the Royal Navy, 1775-1815
Evan Wilson
2 My dearest Tussy': coping with separation during the Napoleonic Wars (the Fremantle papers, 1800-14)
Elaine Chalus
3 The Admiralty's gaze: disciplining indecency and sodomy in the Edwardian fleet
Mary Conley
4 Navy, nation and empire: nineteenth-century photographs of the British naval community overseas
Cindy McCreery
5 Salt water in the blood: race, indigenous naval recruitment and British colonialism, 1934-41
Daniel Owen Spence
Part II Representations of the Royal Navy
6 Memorialising Anson, the fighting explorer: a case study in eighteenth-century naval commemoration and material culture
Katherine Parker
7 The apotheosis of Nelson in the National Gallery of Naval Art
Cicely Robinson
8 Naval heroism in the mid-Victorian family magazine
Barbara Korte
9 'What is the British Navy doing?' The Royal Navy's image problem in War Illustrated magazine
Jonathan Rayner
10 Patriotism and pageantry: representations of Britain's naval past at the Greenwich Night Pageant, 1933
Emma Hanna
Afterword: Britain and the sea: new histories
Jan Ruger