Library

In 1588, the British Royal Navy defeated the Spanish Armada. This victory created a legend. In the next few hundred years, the wealth, power and glory of the empire would be born in the ocean. The Royal Navy would push Britain from the edge of Europe to the center of the modern world. This book takes the 400-year development history of the British Navy as the main line, telling the rise of the British Empire and how it affected the rise and fall of modern civilization. The book is divided into four chapters, "Heart of Oak", "Golden Ocean", "Wind and Waves", and "Great Changes in the Ocean", one by one showing Britain's journey from controlling the lifeline of maritime traffic to establishing a global maritime empire, which ultimately led to a crisis in global civilization. Readers can explore the following history from the book: How did the Royal Navy develop from a ragtag group engaged in maritime plunder to a world policeman maintaining "peace under the British Empire"? From the 16th to the 18th century, how did Britain defeat almost all maritime powers in Europe and create a maritime legend of dominating the world? The pirate Drake, Prime Minister William Pitt Jr., Admiralty Ministers Fisher and Churchill... What impact did the naval reforms they carried out have on the British political, economic and cultural systems? Britain became the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and shaped modern capitalist civilization. What are the intrinsic connections between these and the Royal Navy? Why did Britain and Germany engage in a naval arms race, and how did British maritime hegemony go from its peak to its decline?