The last chapter by James Goldrick has made a number of important points. First, it stressed that it is wholly appropriate for this book to end on the subject of how best to bring their history home to navies because it is so important both for them and for the historians who produce it. It argued that history helps explain to navies what they are for and to some extent at least how they should set about their business. Second, navies need to be receptive to the past, to preserve and process the records (or what these days passes for records) of what they have done to build a bank of experience for the future. They need to nurture the declining number of long-serving professional practitioners who actually hadthat experience and are willing to talk about it if they only had the encouragement to do so, and the appropriate outlets (neither of which, as an aside, I believe they currently do).

Naval historians can help in all this of course, but it is good to be reminded of some of the things that historians must do in order to perform that function effectively. They should think of things ‘in the round’ – to pay due regard to context and to avoid narrow fixations on mono-causal explanations. They need to understand the technological and logistical realities, what it is actually like to beat sea. Hence the particular value of ex-sailors (like James Goldrick himself, and indeed John Hattendorf) who are also historians. They also need to avoid unconscious hindsight and to sympathise with their subjects who clearly could not enjoy its advantages.

The chapter ended with the encouraging conclusion that all this can be done and that properly encouraged, proper history can ‘stick’ amongst the barbarians. This argument could go further. My own experience at the Royal Naval Colleges of Dartmouth and Greenwich and the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham is that the ‘barbarians’ actually quite often likebeing ‘stuck’ with naval history, provided it is ‘what it says on the tin’ – namely real, honest objective analysis of the naval past, not a threadbare academic covering for proselytising. We historians are pushing on an open door, or should be.