| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 133.2

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| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 133.2 | The History Cooperative

BOOK REVIEWS

If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy—From the Revolution to the War of 1812. By George C. Daughan. (New York: Basic Books, 2008. 536 pp. Illustrations, maps, glossary, source notes, bibliography, index. $30.)
If By Sea is thought-provoking reading for specialists in the naval history of the early American republic and a good introduction to the subject for the uninitiated. The first half of the book is a thesis-driven analysis of the contributions, or lack thereof, made by the Continental navy to the winning of independence. The second half is a narrative of naval developments from the close of the War of Independence to the end of the War of 1812 within the context of the national debate over the strategic value of the United States Navy.	1
The chapters on the Revolutionary War are not what one might expect of a naval history. We read little about Continental naval operations or the challenges of creating a navy from scratch. Rather, Daughan tells the story of the Continental army from a strategic vantage point and on the basis that the war's outcome rested on the fate of the army. At critical junctures he asks, where was the Continental navy, and how could it have supported the army?	. . .

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