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Admiral of the Narrow Seas
Admiral of the Narrow Seas
Oct 6, 2024 4:25 AM

Author:Andrew Gordon

Admiral of the Narrow Seas

Bertram Ramsay has acquired almost mythical status in the history of the Second World War, firstly as the principal organizer of the Dunkirk evacuation and then as naval commander of the Allied invasion of Normandy - in the eyes of many, 'the organizer of victory'. But because Ramsay was killed in January 1945 and never wrote his own memoirs, his life has until now been difficult to pin down.

Andrew Gordon, prize-winning author of The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, writing with the help of Ramsay's descendants, now describes the career of this intense and territorial man in full, for the first time establishing his true role in the two great tests of his life and conveying his very particular personality. This is a superb biography of a naval officer, which also illuminated afresh British history in the first half of the twentieth century.

Reviews

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Magdalena is a revelatory and often enchanting book

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This book is the culmination of a lifetime's work in the country and is suffused with a love and knowledge that only such long acquaintance can bring

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Passionate and profoundly engaged... [Davis'] presentation of the great river as Colombia's Mississippi, its fountain of music, the source of its many contradictions...generates an impact that few travel books can muster.

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Music and myth, commerce and colonialism, indigeneity and identity: Magdalena is as impressively exploratory in approach as it is encyclopaedic in scope

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Coffeeland will set a new standard ... an innovative study of work, of the work involved to produce a drink needed by workers to keep working. Sedgewick treats coffee not so much as a material commodity but rather more like intangible energy ... provocative and convincing.

—— Greg Grandin, author of THE END OF THE MYTH
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