The Great Naval Race

A history of the Anglo-German naval race preceding the First World War, the men who prosecuted it, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred Tirpitz, Admiral 'Jackie' Fisher, Winston Churchill and the 'Dreadnought' battleships by which performance was measured.

Book Author

Peter Padfield was born in 1932 and educated at Christ's Hospital. After service as a navigating officer in P&O liners, he gained a berth as a mariner aboard the replica seventeenth century Mayflower on her recreation of the Pilgrim Fathers' voyage and later panned for gold in the disused gold mines on Guadalcanal. He described his time in the Pacific and the Mayflower voyage in his first book The Sea is a Magic Carpet. Returning to Britain, he worked in nautical journalism and in manufacturing industry until the international success of The Titanic and the Californian enc...
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Book Reviews

• Navy Interrnational
  "An absorbing and well told account of the almost unbelievable machinations of the principal actors in the drama leading up to the Great War... excellent portraits of those involved... an excellent and deeply researched book."
• The Times
  "Mr Padfield...has his own specialised contribution to make on the development of the battleship, especially its gunnery equipment...Narrative skill and balanced judgement."
• Readers' Syndicate, California
  "It's a marvellous bit of history, very well done."