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Article: "I will be a hero."(book on Lord Horatio Nelson)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- New Criterion
- Article date:
- June 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Foundation for Cultural Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Edgar Vincent Nelson: Love and Fame. Yale University Press, 640 pages, $35
Decisive naval battles are the rarest of military engagements. The difficulty of finding and closing with your enemy has always meant that naval warfare is extended periods of boredom followed by short sharp battles from which the loser could usually slip away before total destruction.
Horatio Nelson gave the lie to this. His career reads as a successful effort not to beat his enemy, but annihilate him. The brief hours of his battles shifted the balance of power in Europe. Why Nelson was the most successful naval commander in history becomes abundantly clear in Edgar Vincent's ...