Nelson, Navy & Nation explores the Royal Navy’s relationship with Britain from the Glorious Revolution to the Napoleonic Wars. The book encompasses the realities of naval life in this period; the navy’s connection to society; culture and national identity; and the story of Nelson's life and career. It brings together a distinguished panel of leading historians including Roger Knight, Andrew Lambert, Brian Lavery, N.A.M. Rodger and Dan Snow.

Together, they give a fascinating contextual overview, from the terrifying realities of battle in the age of sail to the lives of ordinary people ashore who celebrated the navy’s achievements. It places the extraordinary achievements of Horatio Nelson within a wider context that makes sense of his dazzling celebrity. In so doing, it reveals that the story of the Royal Navy and Nelson is also the story of the fears and ambitions of the British people.

Beautifully illustrated throughout from the world-leading collections of the National Maritime Museum, the book combines accessible narrative history for the general reader with superb visual appeal. It is an ideal companion to the Museum’s new permanent ‘Nelson, Navy, Nation’ gallery, which opened in October 2013.

Author Information
Dr Quintin Colville is Curator of Naval History at the National Maritime Museum. He is lead curator of the new ‘Nelson, Navy, Nation’ gallery, and specialises in the social and cultural history of the Royal Navy. His work has been awarded the Julian Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History, and the Royal Historical Society’s Alexander Prize.

Dr James Davey is Curator of Naval History at the National Maritime Museum. He is co-curator of the new ‘Nelson, Navy, Nation’ gallery. His work considers the history of the Royal Navy in a variety of political, economic and cultural contexts. He is the author of Broadsides: Caricature and the Navy, 1756–1815 (with Richard Johns), and the Transformation of British Naval Strategy: Seapower and Supply in Northern Europe, 1808–1812.

NN.A.M. Rodger is a Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His many publications include The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain 660–1649 (1997), and The Command of the Ocean: a Naval History of Britain 1649-1815 (2004).