Sea Battles in Close-Up: The Age of Nelson

Sea Battles in Close-up: The Age of Nelson David Lyon This is an absolutely great book on Sea battles in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The name is a bit misleading, as it covers more than the age of Nelson. We get the usual chapter on ships, the navy, etc. in the Age of Sail. Then we move on to chapters on Quiberon Bay, Flamborough Head, St. Kitts, Battles in the Baltic between the Swedes and Russians, the Nile, Boulogne Flotilla, Trafalgar, Lissa, single ship actions, and finally `Cutting out Expeditions' against the Barbary corsairs. One can see that quite a range of time and many topics are covered in this book. Each chapter is very well detailed with a list of the ships and their captains, number of guns, and what happened to each ship in the battle. This makes it easy to see how the opposing fleets stacked up against each other and the outcome of the battles. The detail of the battles is outstanding and the text is supplemented by maps and numerous illustrations of ships, men and battles. Just looking at the illustrations and reading the captions is a treat. My favorite part of the book was the sections on `Cutting out Expeditions.' Today we would call these commando raids. This was exciting reading. The whole chapter moved like a novel. I felt like I was watching Hornblower (BTW, who needs fiction when the real thing is just as good, if not better? This is the stuff that movies should be made of!). All in all, the book was well written, packed with information, and a joy to read. Also, the author glosses troublesome words in the text so it doesn't slow your reading by having to look in a glossary at the back. A great book and I highly recommend it.