Review

Brayton Harris sketches an exquisite technical history of the submarine and submarine warfare in The Navy Times Book of Submarines, but he does not reach his stated goal of writing a political, social, and military history. He gives the reader a detailed tour of the technical evolution of submarines, torpedoes, mines, and anti-submarine warfare from the late sixteenth century through the nuclear navies. Though Harris incorporates developments in British, French, German, Japanese, and Soviet submarine forces, his main focus is the United States Navy. Harris argues that short-sighted civil servants, conservative military cultures, and lack of strategic and technical vision have prevented the submarine from achieving its full potential. Though Harris covers the technical evolution of the submarine well, he neglects to contextualize submarines in the larger scope of military history, overemphasizes naval conservatism, and fails to include political or social history.	1
Like Alex Roland in Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail, Harris emphasizes the earliest naval experiments with mining and submersible craft. He details the work of several innovators such as Cornelius Van Drebbel, who engineered the first submarine for Charles I, David Bushnell, whose Turtle participated in the first wartime submarine attack, and John Phillip Holland, who fathered the first modern submarine. Robert Fulton, better known for his work with steam engines, also dabbled in submarines as did gun maker Samuel Colt. Several individuals argued against the immorality of submarine warfare, including Fulton. Woodrow Wilson picked up the same theme when objecting to Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare during the First World War.	2
Historians disagree about the effectiveness of the Union's blockade of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, but Harris takes an extreme stance. He argues "that the Federal naval blockade, by severely reducing the importation of military and civilian supplies along the 3,500-mile coastline of the Confederacy, had more effect on the course of the Civil War than any battle, or all battles combined." He makes this assertion without providing any supporting evidence and without placing the naval war in the overall context of the Civil War land battles. By emphasizing the vise the Union Navy placed upon the Confederacy, however, Harris makes the story of the Confederate submarine Hunley attacking Union blockaders even more valiant.	3
Harris rails against inbred conservatism that prevented naval officers from realizing the true potential of the submarine. Of the European nations on the eve of the Great War, Harris announces that "some were even more handicapped than others, having inherited styles and attitudes based on four-hundred-year-old traditions and a firm sense of what was right and proper, probably sent from God and therefore proof against professional heresy." Attitudes toward developing anti-submarine weapons proved no more enlightened, "for lack of sufficient high-level interest, inventions which might have been put to practical use had pretty much stayed in the laboratory." Germany first turned to the submarine in desperation against the punishing British blockade. Harris severely criticizes the British for failing to adopt convoy early in the conflict, blaming naval conservatism. While naval strategists did favor offensive over defensive maneuvers, the resistance to convoy also rested on practical grounds. Organizing convoys was a logistical nightmare, disrupting the flow of food and materiel into Britain, stalling merchants, and clogging the ports. The Admiralty believed that convoys made better targets than individual merchant ships and both the Admiralty and merchant captains doubted that they had the skill to sail in convoy, which required close formations and zig-zag approaches. In addition, the British simply did not have enough ships to escort convoys until the US entered the war. Harris also makes naval conservatism a factor in the sluggish development of the US nuclear navy and development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles.	4
Since Harris's book is so specialized, its place in the classroom is somewhat limited. Though subtitled A Political, Social, and Military History, Harris focuses on internal submarine policy debates only and does not include a social history of submariners or life on submarines. Students could benefit from that larger picture. Harris tells a good story of mechanical evolution and invention, but the technical aspects are too complex for students below high school level. High school or college students would find The Navy Times Book of Submarines useful for a paper or history project, though without footnotes and with a skimpy bibliography, it is not the best place to start a research project. However, instructors who emphasize technology in their courses might find this work appealing, particularly those interested in military developments and issues of innovation.	5
Kansas State University Lisa Borowski

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