A new naval history

A New Naval History brings together the most significant and interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary naval history. The last few decades have witnessed a transformation in how this field is researched and understood and this volume captures the state of a field that continues to develop apace. It examines – through the prism of naval affairs – issues of nationhood and imperialism; the legacy of Nelson; the socio-cultural realities of life in ships and naval bases; and the processes of commemoration, journalism and stage-managed pageantry that plotted the interrelationship of ship and shore. This bold and original publication will be essential for undergraduate and postgraduate students of naval and maritime history. Beyond that, though, it marks an important intervention into wider historiographies that will be read by scholars from across the spectrum of social history, cultural studies and the analysis of national identity.

This volume brings together a diverse selection of the latest academic research in the field of naval history. No longer confined to analyses of ships and battles, it is the first publication to capture a new form naval history that engages with race, sexuality, gender, material culture, popular culture and fine art. Edited by two leading historians of the Royal Navy, it will become a defining book in the field.

A New Naval History brings together the most significant and interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary naval history. The last few decades have witnessed a transformation in how this field is researched and understood and this volume captures the state of a field that continues to develop apace. It examines – through the prism of naval affairs – issues of nationhood and imperialism; the legacy of Nelson; the socio-cultural realities of life in ships and naval bases; and the processes of commemoration, journalism and stage-managed pageantry that plotted the interrelationship of ship and shore. This bold and original publication will be essential for undergraduate and postgraduate students of naval and maritime history. Beyond that, though, it marks an important intervention into wider historiographies that will be read by scholars from across the spectrum of social history, cultural studies and the analysis of national identity.

List of figures and tables Notes on contributors IntroductionQuintin Colville and James DaveyPart I Sociocultural analyses of the Royal Navy 1 Particular skills: warrant officers in the Royal Navy, 1775–1815Evan Wilson 2 My dearest Tussy’: coping with separation during the Napoleonic Wars (the Fremantle papers, 1800–14)Elaine Chalus 3 The Admiralty’s gaze: disciplining indecency and sodomy in the Edwardian fleetMary Conley 4 Navy, nation and empire: nineteenth-century photographs of the British naval community overseasCindy McCreery 5 Salt water in the blood: race, indigenous naval recruitment and British colonialism, 1934–41Daniel Owen SpencePart II Representations of the Royal Navy 6 Memorialising Anson, the fighting explorer: a case study in eighteenth-century naval commemoration and material cultureKatherine Parker 7 The apotheosis of Nelson in the National Gallery of Naval ArtCicely Robinson 8 Naval heroism in the mid-Victorian family magazineBarbara Korte 9 ‘What is the British Navy doing?’ The Royal Navy’s image problem inWar Illustrated magazineJonathan Rayner 10 Patriotism and pageantry: representations of Britain’s naval past at the Greenwich Night Pageant, 1933Emma Hanna Afterword: Britain and the sea: new historiesJan Rüger