Forests and Sea Power: The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652-1862 (Classics of Naval Literature)

Albion, Robert Greenhalgh

ISBN 10: 1557500215 / ISBN 13: 9781557500212

Published by Naval Institute Press, 2000

About this Item

This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,800grams, ISBN:1557500215.

Seller Inventory # 5845194

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Forests and Sea Power: The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652-1862 (Classics of Naval Literature)
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1557500215
• ISBN 13: 9781557500212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Poor
• Weight: 800 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Natural History & Science

About this title

Synopsis

First published in 1926 as part of the Harvard Economic Studies series, this work was awarded the David A. Wells Prize and has been considered the standard reference on the subject ever since. It established for the first time the indivisible relationship between timber supply and sea power, and how this union influenced naval architecture and international law, as well as foreign, colonial, commercial, and forest policies. The result of an exhaustive, international research effort, the book also has been acknowledged by naval historians to be one of the very early attempts to broaden naval history into a serious study of logistics and supply and of technology and operations.

In a delightfully absorbing prose rare for such studies, Robert Albion relates these pivotal issues throughout the two-hundred-year period that saw most of the greatest naval wars of the Age of Sail, from the First Dutch War of 1652 to the introduction of the ironclad early in the American Civil War. The author explores how the timber supply problem affected other European maritime powers and their far-flung colonies, explains how it was driven by the conservatism and corruption of official bureaus and rapacious landowners conducting the business, and offers a fascinating portrait of the contemporary logging and timber transport industries.

An introductory essay has been written for this new Classics edition by Timothy Bean, a lecturer at the department of war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and a specialist in early eighteenth-century naval history. His essay examines Albion's unique contributions to the understanding of the relationship between the military and commerce and applies Navy timber supply issues to twentieth-century problems with oil supplies.