"In February 1793 France declared war on Britain, and for the next twenty-two years the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars raged. This was to be the longest, cruelest war ever fought at sea, comparable in scale only to the Second World War. New naval tactics were brought to bear, along with such unheard-of weapons as rockets, torpedoes, and submarines. The war on land saw the rise of the greatest soldier the world had ever known--Napoleon Buonaparte--whose vast ambition was thwarted by a genius he never met in person or in battleL: Admiral Horatio Nelson"--Inside cover.

Originally published: London : Jonathan Cape, 2007.

Maps -- I. THE TACTICAL EVOLUTION. Ocean -- Navy -- Century -- Decade -- II. THE GREAT WAR, FIRST PHASE, 1793-1805. Wood -- Shipboard -- Toulon -- Buonaparte -- Corsica -- Battle -- Uncertainty -- Change -- Triumph -- Mutiny -- Tenerife -- Camperdown -- Duel -- Offensive -- Nile -- Barbary -- Neutrality -- "Quasi-war" -- Impressed -- Naples -- Acre -- Return -- Consul -- Home -- Baltic -- Straits -- Amiens -- "Temeraire" -- Resumption -- Boulogne -- Tripoli -- Watch -- Chase -- Prelude -- Trafalgar -- Aftermath -- III. THE CONCLUSIVE STRUGGLE, 1805-1816. Appraisal -- Rampage -- Sandy Hook -- Chesapeake -- Abominable -- Peninsula -- Collingwood -- Cadiz -- Catalonia -- Basque roads -- Expeditionary forces -- Timor -- China & Japan -- Crisis -- Breakdown -- "Swallow" -- Tarragona -- America -- War -- "Macedonian" -- Reflection -- Northwest -- Lakeland -- Torpedoes -- Elba -- Snow march -- Patuxent -- New Orleans -- Adriatic -- Adieu -- Algiers.