The Northern Mariner/Le Marin Du Nord, XXVII, No

Book Reviews Wendy van Duivenvoorde. Dutch technical discussion of one particular East India Company Shipbuilding: ship, while setting it in within the The Archaeological Study of Batavia context of seventeenth-century and Other Seventeenth Century Dutch, and especially, Vereenigde Ships. College Station, TX: Texas Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), A&M University Press, www. shipbuilding. It is a meticulous and tamupress.com, 2015. 310 pp., illus- definitive cataloguing of the material trations, maps, bibliography, index. recovered from the Batavia, wrecked US $90.00, hardback; ISBN 978-1- off the west coast of Australia in 62349-179-6. 1628, as well as a discussion of the context of the disaster. The various James Bender. Dutch Warships in the chapters detail the study of the wreck, Age of Sail 1600 - 1714: Design, the disciplinary context of other VOC Construction and Fates. Annapolis, ships, and the archaeological find- MD: Naval Institute Press, www. ings. The author`s objective was to usni.org, 2014. 328 pp., illustrations, “create a better understanding of maps, notes, bibliography, index. US Dutch shipbuilding practices in the $78.95, hardback; ISBN 978-1- late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth 84832-157-1. century, in particular for ships de- signed and constructed to sail long Although it tends to be lost in the distances over the world's oceans.” It shuffle of the First World War cente- is important that she states that the nary, 2017 is the 350th anniversary of understanding of the Batavia in this the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch book is not a final reconstruction, but War, which was fought from 1665- a working hypothesis and educated 1667. The interdisciplinary and more guess. The sheer wealth of documen- nuanced approaches of the last sev- tation about the study and recovery of eral decades are actively working to the Batavia, information known reshape conceptions of not only the about other contemporary ships, and Second Anglo-Dutch War, but also of archival documents ensured her suc- the global context of seventeenth cess. century conflicts. Both books under For those who are interested in discussion examine Dutch shipbuild- the early-modern aspects of the age ing and ships, and provide details of sail, Dutch East India Company which, until recently, have been un- Shipbuilding is a must-buy, and an known or hard to acquire in English excellent example of the interdisci- language texts. plinary work that is driving modern Wendy van Duivenvoorde's understandings of the early-modern Dutch East India Company Ship- maritime world. For example, in- building: The Archaeological Study cluded in the book are transcribed of Batavia and Other Seventeenth and translated documents from Dutch Century Ships provides a detailed, archives that define the dimensions of The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, XXVII, No. 3 (July 2017), 289-346. 290 The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord various different types of wooden much more detail for each ship. Un- ships. These are absolutely invalu- fortunately, unlike the Winfield vol- able, and provide important context umes, Bender does not supply a com- for the technical discussion and 'edu- plete set of characteristics for each cated guesses'. Further, the book is ship. Dimensions for some ships are beautifully printed and presented. provided intermittently, although There are numerous detailed and well most ships do have crew, armament laid-out images, including archival and commanders detailed. Bender documents, screen-shots of computer cannot be criticized for being unable programs used to reconstruct the to match Winfield’s wealth of techni- Batavia, and explanatory diagrams. cal details since his Royal Navy re- Van Duivenvoorde's efforts on this cords remain largely intact, while book continue the original accom- most of Bender’s comparable Dutch plishments of the Batavia team led by records were lost in a fire in 1844. Western Australia’s Jeremy Green, The details are accompanied by a who provided the foreword. large number of excellent (although James Bender's Dutch Warships all black and white) reproductions of in the Age of Sail 1600-1714: Design, contemporary drawings, paintings Construction, Careers and Fates is a and other images. much more straightforward historical Both Dutch East India Company effort, and makes an equally impor- Shipbuilding and Dutch Warships in tant contribution as a reference work the Age of Sail are highly recom- for historical research on the early- mended. They should certainly be modern maritime world. Although purchased for university libraries and Dutch Warships in the Age of Sail would make valued additions to the does not quite do for the Dutch navy personal libraries of academic schol- what Rif Winfield's fantastic British ars and history buffs. Warships in the Age of Sail did for the British navy, it is, nevertheless, a Samuel McLean detailed, and definitive cataloguing of Toronto, Ontario Dutch warships during the described period. The book begins with the Andrew Boyd. The Royal Navy in author’s brief explanation of the Eastern Waters, Linchpin of Victory, text`s structure, followed by a key to 1935-1942. Barnsley, S. Yorks: Sea- abbreviations, a glossary and bibliog- forth Publishing, www.pen-and- raphy. Despite its rather unorthodox sword.com, 2017. xxi+538 pg. illus- placement of information, this layout trations, tables, maps, appendix, works really well to provide context notes, bibliography, index. UK for the reader. There is a 24-page £30.00, US $39.95, cloth; ISBN 978- introduction from the excellent and 1-47389-248-4. (Distributed in North authoritative English historian of the America by Naval Institute Press, Anglo-Dutch Wars, J.D. Davies, in www.usnip.org). which he provides needed back- ground on the Dutch state, and the This is a big book, physically and Dutch methods for the creation, historiographically. Andrew Boyd, a maintenance and use of maritime former Royal Navy (RN) submariner military forces. Next comes two and Foreign Office civil servant, sections of fleet lists; the former sim- challenges a considerable field of ply listing ships that took part in each literature regarding the efficiency of campaign, and the latter, providing the interwar Royal Navy, the circum- Book Reviews 291 stances surrounding loss of the battle- the view that the interwar Royal ship Prince of Wales and the battle- Navy was intellectually conservative cruiser Repulse (Force Z) to Japanese and consumed with refighting the air attack in December 1941, and 1916 Battle of Jutland. In contrast, British strategy for defense of South- Boyd wants to show that in the 1930s east Asia and the Indian Ocean. In the Navy was both stronger and more particular, Boyd rejects those such as innovative than has been suggested, Correlli Barnett, who describe British even by fellow revisionists such as Eastern defense policy as “strategic John Ferris and Jon Sumida. He illusion, weakness, and then irrele- describes British interwar warships as vance” in the late 1930s and early broadly comparable to their foreign 1940s. Boyd’s work supports and counterparts and draws upon recent extends David Edgerton’s challenge works by Sumida, Geoffrey Till, to Barnett’s and Paul Kennedy’s view Norman Friedman, Thomas Hones, of twentieth-century Britain as a na- Mark Mandeles, and D.K. Brown to tion in decline. In contrast, Edgerton argue for the interwar Royal Navy. and Boyd highlight Britain’s Boyd makes a strong case, though in strengths, enduring prowess, and at least one technical area he goes too effectiveness, especially compared far in suggesting that the carrier HMS with nations other than the United Eagle was “comparable” to USS States. Boyd’s principal innovation Lexington in both size and capabili- is to recast our frame of reference ties (16). Boyd’s synthesis of recent when considering British Eastern revisionist works raises a larger inter- defense strategy. Instead of focusing pretive question. To what degree on the defense of the Singapore base should internal consistency and ‘ap- and Southeast Asia, Boyd argues that propriate for the information known in the late 1930s, planners in London at the time’ be the standard of histori- began to conceive of an eastern em- cal evaluation of military organiza- pire stretching from the South China tions? For example, Boyd accepts Sea and Singapore in the east all the and expands on Till’s 1979 argument way to the eastern Mediterranean in (in Air Power and the Royal Navy, the west. Within this area lay the 1914-1945: A Historical Survey) that critical Middle Eastern oil fields, the the RN’s interwar Fleet Air Arm resources of India-Australia, and the (FAA) reflected a uniquely British sea lines of communication connect- context and was in large measure ing these resources with the rest of appropriate for the tasks envisioned the empire. While modern historians and undertaken, despite serious limi- have separated the Mediterranean, tations. In contrast, Williamson Indian Ocean, and Pacific Oceans in Murray accepts Till’s position, but their accounts of the Second World concludes that the RN still “got it War, Boyd recasts British defense wrong” on naval aviation by making policy by highlighting the linkages, comparisons with American and Jap- both physical and mental, between anese naval aviation. (See William- these regions. son and A. Reed Millet’s 1996 Mili- The author begins by examining tary Innovation in the Interwar Pe- the Navy’s rearmament program of riod). Both perspectives appear to the 1930s, setting himself in opposi- have merit and the question requires tion to what he describes as “the stan- further investigation. dard narrative” of the Navy’s inter- Boyd then examines the develop- war decline. Barnett is the chief ment of British strategy to defend its culprit in Boyd’s account, especially eastern empire. He highlights a key 292 The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord 1937 meeting where British officials Asia, London gave the Mediterranean decided that in the eastern empire priority.

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