I read this book in hard cover when it first came out early last year, and I agree with the blurbs that it is a valuable and well-written survey covering a variety of themes relating to the careers of flag officers of the period. However, the hard cover version included a shocking number of typos and other mistakes which decent copy editing should have picked up, and which are a disgrace for an academic publisher such as Bloomsbury (especially as the book was very expensive). I hope the paperback version has been cleaned up.