I read a lot of naval history and the period covered by this book is of
particular interest to me, so there's a good change that I'll buy and
read anything new that comes along. So I was looking forward to reading
this after it was given to me at Xmas.

I managed to get about 1/3rd of the way through, gritting my teeth and
trying to be charitable, perhaps he had a point here and there, but the
final straw was his discussion on battlecruisers where he referenced
John Sumida's work and then went to claim that problems with the
accuracy of large calibre naval guns weren't solved until the invention
of proximity fuses! That was the final straw. I think the book must have
been written as part of bet to see if was possible to get something full
of wild inaccuracy and ill-informed speculation published as a work of
history, sadly for us all he won the bet!

So, my advice is avoid books by this author at all costs, he describes
himself as a naval historian, but there are two problems he apparently
knows little history and less about naval matters.
--
Nik Simpson

On Jan 19, 7:50 am, nik Simpson <ni...*knology.net> wrote:
> I read a lot of naval history and the period covered by this book is of
> particular interest to me, so there's a good change that I'll buy and
> read anything new that comes along. So I was looking forward to reading
> this after it was given to me at Xmas.
>
> I managed to get about 1/3rd of the way through, gritting my teeth and
> trying to be charitable, perhaps he had a point here and there, but the
> final straw was his discussion on battlecruisers where he referenced
> John Sumida's work and then went to claim that problems with the
> accuracy of large calibre naval guns weren't solved until the invention
> of proximity fuses! That was the final straw. I think the book must have
> been written as part of bet to see if was possible to get something full
> of wild inaccuracy and ill-informed speculation published as a work of
> history, sadly for us all he won the bet!
>
> So, my advice is avoid books by this author at all costs, he describes
> himself as a naval historian, but there are two problems he apparently
> knows little history and less about naval matters.
> --
> Nik Simpson

google.com/books?id=tFPyQotIVMUC&dq=power+at+sea+rose&pg=PP1&ots=6FVcBRPf_Q&sig=e5bRqmsfLBzRbMiwMfnn8Y3uC4s&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=power+at+sea+rose&btnG=Google+Search&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPR8,M1" target="_blank">http://books.google.com/books?id=tFP...mbnail#PPR8,M1

for a google books preview

University of Missouri press (my Alma M) part of a three volume
history
http://press.umsystem.edu/fall2006/rose1.htm