To Shining Sea

Book Notes

To Shining Sea: A History of the United States Navy, 1775-1998.   By Stephen Howarth.

Revised Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. xvii + 630 pp. $24.95 Paper.

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The University of Oklahoma press has reissued Stephen Howarth's 1991 history of the United States' navy with a new chapter taking the story through 1998. This is a long narrative history which will probably be used by most people as a reference book, although, despite its forbidding length and dense type, it is surprisingly readable. Haworth covers the story from the origins of the navy in the Continental Congress to the present, covering political, policy, and combat topics, but with a focus on naval strategy. He makes no effort to cover fully naval technology, to write a book of entertaining adventure stores, or to provide a full-scale evaluation of the role of the navy in war and peace. San Diego readers will probably regret the very limited coverage of naval aviation, and may also wonder how you can write the history of the U. S Navy without mentioning San Diego.