This brisk narrative charts the history of the United States Navy from its birth during the American Revolution through its emergence as a global power amid the world wars of the twentieth century and finally to its current role as a superpower in the twenty-first century.

• Preface


• 1. An Ad Hoc Navy: The Revolutionary War (1775-1783)


• 2. Establishing an American Navy: The Age of Sail (1783-1809)


• 3. An American Navy Confirmed: The War of 1812


• 4. A Constabulary Navy: Pirates, Slavers and Manifest Destiny (1820-1850)


• 5. Steam and Iron: A Technological Revolution and a Civil War (1850-1865)


• 6. The New Navy: Retrenchment and Renaissance (1865-1900)


• 7. A Navy Second to None: The U.S. Navy in World War I (1901-1939)


• 8. The Two Ocean Navy: World War II (1939-1945)


• 9. Confronting the Soviets: The Cold War Navy (1945-1990)


• 10. The U.S. Navy in the 21st Century


• Further Reading

Craig L. Symonds is the Professor Emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy. He is the author of ten previous books, including The Battle of Midway, The Civil War at Sea, Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings, and Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History, which won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize in 2006.