No one has been so well equipped as C. S. Forester to dramatize the sea battles of the War of 1812, to characterize the heroes more skillfully, or to comprehend more shrewdly the world unrest that made it possible for an infant republic to embarrass seriously a great nation rich in one hundred years of sea triumphs. In The Age of Fighting Sail, the author of The African Queen, Payment Deferred, and the Horatio Hornblower books contrives to write history as if the reader could not possibly know the outcome until each chapter has been read. This is great history and wonderful reading.
Did you find this review helpful?