The final instalment of N.A.M. Rodger's definitive, authoritative trilogy on Britain's naval history

At the end of the French and Napoleonic wars, British sea-power was at its apogee. But by 1840, as one contemporary commentator put it, the Admiralty was full of ‘intellects becalmed in the smoke of Trafalgar’. How the Royal Navy reformed and reinvigorated itself in the course of the nineteenth century is just one thread in this magnificent book, which refuses to accept standard assumptions and analyses.

All the great actions are here, from Navarino in 1827 (won by a daringly disobedient Admiral Codrington) to Jutland, D-Day, the Battle of the Atlantic and the battles in the Pacific in 1944/45 in concert with the US Navy. The development and strategic significance of submarine and navy air forces is superbly described, as are the rapid evolution of ships (from classic Nelsonic type, to hybrid steam/sail ships, then armour-clad and the fully armoured Dreadnoughts and beyond) and weapons. The social history of officers and men – and sometimes women – always a key part of the author’s work, is not neglected.

Rodger sets all this in the essential context of politics and geo-strategy. The character and importance of leading admirals – Beatty, Fisher, Cunningham – is assessed, together with the roles of other less famous but no less consequential figures. Based on a lifetime’s learning, it is the culmination of one of the most significant British historical works in recent decades.

Naval specialists will find much that is new here, and will be invigorated by the originality of Rodger’s judgements; but everyone who is interested in the one of the central threads in British history will find it rewarding.

"Nicholas Rodger is our foremost naval historian … At last, with The Price of Victory, NAM Rodger’s great history of naval warfare is complete – and this final volume is a fascinating triumph … deeply-researched" - Telegraph

"Within Rodger’s pages is everything you will ever need to know about the evolution of warships and their weapons across a century and a half. Throughout, the author is clear-sighted about the over-rigid exercise of command at sea ... The book’s chapters on the navy’s social history are among its best, highlighting the elevation of loyalty as a supreme virtue, discouraging junior officers from thinking for themselves ... Rodger writes with such authority [and] pays just tribute to the contribution of the women of the Women’s Royal Naval Service" - Sunday Times

"Magisterial … a very considerable and scholarly work of synthesis which will provide a baseline for future work on Britain and its naval history for a generation or more" - Spectator

"This mighty book, the concluding volume of a trilogy chronicling the history of the Royal Navy, is the size of an aircraft carrier. Covering the years 1815-1945, Volume III weighs in at nearly 1,000 pages. Max Hastings is right to describe it as a “great work”, full of “unfamiliar facts and magisterial judgments" - Saturday Times