Having nothing whatsoever to do with submarines is Adam Nicholson's Seize the Fire: Herosim, Duty and the Battle of Trafalgar.
On the surface Nicholson has taken a page out of such Victor Davis Hanson works as Carnage and Culture or Ripples of Battle but without much of the Western jingoistic metaphysical hyperbole. Still, this cultural history of Trafalgar is a superior piece of history and well worth a look by anybody with even a remote interest of the Royal Navy's greatest triumph.
This is a very well researched, highly readable book that goes far to explain how the RN in combat out killed its enemies by better than a 10:1 ratio throughout the wars of the period. By this measure Trafalgar was a very hard fought battle as the kill ratio was a meer 6:1 for the English fleet. By the end of the book you can well believe Nicholson's early contention that virtually every participant on both sides that October morning knew that the catastophic defeat of the Combined Fleet was a foregone conclusion even before the first broadside was fired.
Buy it through the Amazon link and support SubSim at the same time!
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