A sweeping, lavish one-volume history of the rise of American naval power during World War II
“When he is at his best, as he often is in these pages, Kennedy can be dazzling.”—Ian W. Toll, New York Times
“The book makes for enjoyable reading, owing to the author’s easygoing style . . . Kennedy is an academic who does not write like one; he writes a story, not a treatise.”—Robert D. Kaplan, Washington Post
“Engrossing.”—Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal
In this engaging narrative, historian Paul Kennedy grapples with the rise and fall of the Great Powers during World War II. Tracking the movements of the six major navies of the Second World War-the allied navies of Britain, France, and the United States and the Axis navies of Germany, Italy, and Japan-Kennedy tells a story of naval battles, maritime campaigns, convoys, amphibious landings, and strikes from the sea.
From the elimination of the Italian, German, and Japanese fleets, and almost all of the French fleet, to the end of the era of the big-gunned surface vessel, the advent of the atomic bomb, and the rise of an American economic and military power larger than anything the world had ever seen, Kennedy shows how the strategic landscape for naval affairs was completely altered between 1936 and 1946.
About the Author
Paul Kennedy is J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and director of International Security Studies at Yale University. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books. His best-known work, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, provoked intense debate on its publication thirty-five years ago and has been translated into more than twenty languages.
