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Title: The Navy Times Book of Submarines: A Political, Social, and Military History by Brayton Harris, Walter J. Boyne ISBN: 0-425-17838-2 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 07 August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Nothing special
Comment: If you want a general history of submarines from the start till now its okay.
It covers the early history very well right up to WW1. Has quite a few quite interesting facts nothing though I felt of any major significance.
WW2 is sort of covered.
What particularly did annoy me is that the post war era, I felt this section was very short and badly covered. What there is almost all about the US, a little about Russia and almost nothing about anyone else.
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly recommended look at political and social issues
Comment: While much of any history of submarines will focus on things mechanical, this book goes much farther and more than justifies its sub-title, "A Political, Social and Military History." I was fascinated to see that the political and social aspects of military systems -- or strategies -- have not changed much over the four hundred or so years covered by this book. A comment on comments of "Reader from Rochester" who offered an unflattering review -- where Reader found "superior attitude," I found (and enjoyed) sardonic humour. Be that as it may, Reader ought to hire-out as a professional copy editor, because the irritating errors he spotted (i.e., typos) obviously slid by the publisher's fact-checkers and proofreaders. As for the 3"/50 caliber deck gun -- that's a designation used for naval guns, where "caliber" is the length of the barrel measured as a multiple of the diameter of the bore. Thus, in this instance, a 3" bore and a 150" tube. Obviously, the publisher's copy editor didn't understand this, either, and stuck a period in front of the 50.
Rating: 2
Summary: People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Comment: This book stands out from others in its subject area by the amount of space it devotes to coverage of the very early days of submarines, a subject little covered by others.
However, my enjoyment of it was greatly diminished by the manner in which the author repeatedly heaps scorn upon the other books which apparently contain factual errors that are now finally being corrected in this volume. I rapidly tired of the author's superior attitude, and eventually found myself being annoyed by it.
But despite the fact that this book is quick to criticize other submarine books for being "riddled with errors," it suffers from the same defect itself! Many ship's names are misspelled (Thetis, Ramillies, Plantagenet, etc), gun calibers are quoted in an erroneous manner (I've never heard of a 3 inch / .50 caliber), Hitler's birthday is given incorrectly as 4/18, and numerous other words and names are misspelled. And these are only the ones that I recognized straight away; who knows if other facts are garbled. Perhaps this author too was "in a hurry" to go to press, and thus committed the same mistake of allowing errors to slip through. I realize that the items I listed are mostly of a minor nature, but for a book which makes such a big deal about the errors of others, they are inexcusable. The only other submarine book that I have read which contains the same density of defects is Peter Padfield's "War Beneath the Sea", but then Padfield doesn't assume any tones of superiority, so he is much easier to forgive.
In all, a useful addition to the submarine bookshelf, but flawed, mostly by the author's tiresome attitude.
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Title: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Submarines by Michael DiMercurio, Michael Benson ISBN: 0028644719 Publisher: Alpha Books Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Dark Waters: An Insider's Account of the NR-1, the Cold War's Undercover Nuclear Sub by Lee Vyborny, Don Davis ISBN: 0451207777 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, Annette Lawrence Drew ISBN: 006103004X Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 06 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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