The “Old Navy” and American Policy in the Old World

Prof. Still’s groundbreaking account of the work of the Navy in Europe and the Near East in the Gilded Age was hailed on its original publication in 1980 as “a meticulously researched, detailed narrative” of what the fleet was doing “outside of the Caribbean and the Pacific in the fifty years after the Civil War”, is now available once again.

Despite the passage of nearly forty years, Still’s treatment of the Navy’s role in support of America’s diplomatic, strategic, commercial, and – curiously – Protestant missionary activities in European and Near Eastern waters remains a valuable read those with an interest in American diplomatic history, the advent of the Great War, and the transition of the fleet from the coastal and riverine force of the Civil War through the post-war doldrums and on to the rise of the “New Navy”.