This book focuses almost exclusively on cabinet-level politics,
international diplomacy, and military grand strategy. It
provides a detailed chronological account of the war, sometimes
recounting events hour by hour (on average, each year of the war
receives a separate chapter). A more apt title for the book
would have been "Navalism and its Limitations". Many politicians
cherished the view that navies were cheap and safe as opposed to
the standing armies and expensive European entanglements that
might put Britain on the road to despotism. Richard Harding is
concerned with the practical side of this proposition. Could
wars be won without a substantial investment in what we now like
to call "boots on the ground"? Some historians, mesmerized by
the navy's decisive victories in the 1756-1763 conflict, have
assumed that "in the 1740s seapower had been wasted, by
incompetence and muddled thinking." (p. 7) Harding sets out to
complicate that picture, noting, first, that the navy could
never have lived up to the unr