The key importance of naval success in Britain's rise to being the leading power in the world was a hard-won process, one that linked fighting effectiveness to national support. Covering both these elements, Jeremy Black takes us from the successful Dutch invasion of 1688 to the long sequence of British successes in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Here we have battles and dockyards, the details of naval combat and the finer points of political support for building and sustaining the largest navy in the world.

Thanks to the navy, Britain survived as an independent state and moulded the world.