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(More customer reviews)"The Star Captains: Frigate Command in the Napoleonic Wars"
is an unparalleled look at Royal Navy frigate captains, the officers who were the historical seeds for Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower. Wareham's interest in the subject began with his curiosity about Captain James Newman Newman, whose portrait hung in a stairway at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Seeking to learn more about this thoroughly obscure officer led Wareham beyond standard library books on naval history, and he soon realized that there was little published information about typical frigate captains. Wareham's research into the subject led to his Phd thesis and this book.
What was the career of a post captain like? What did a career in the navy of this era consist of? What was the truth behind the popular images of Nelson's navy? These are the questions that Wareham sought to answer. Along the way, he provides a good deal of analytical data about frigate captains, including statistics on the length of service between passing for lieutenant and being made post, on the how many years a captain might serve as commander of a frigate, and on frequency of assignments to various duty stations. Prize agents' accounts for frigates' captures are tabularized. Family social backgrounds and professions of siblings are listed. All in all, Wareham's book is a treasure trove of information. He also describes various frigate battles and their aftermaths, and he discusses the careers of many unheralded Royal Navy captains. All in all, this is a first-rate resource for better understand the realities of the world so familiar from the works of O'Brian and Forester.
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