Reddit reviews The Safeguard of the Sea (Naval History of the Sea V. 1, 660-1)

Probably the best academic historian turning his hand to popular naval history that I have come across is NAM Rodger. I would thoroughly recommend:

• The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, Vol 1: 660-1649
  
  
• The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, Vol II: 1649-1815
  
  These two balance clear campaign, social, political and technological histories, with as many tables, data, original sources and other appendices as you could desire. Vol III is on its way.
  
  
• The Wooden World: Anatomy of the Georgian Navy
  
  An astonishing social dissection of the lives of those on a Navy warship and how they worked together in the century before the Napoleonic era. His take on discipline (rum, sodomy and the lash = a load of bollocks, a crew is only effective if it works on mutual respect and consent) and naval provisioning (naval food was often better than the working classes could get on land, and the care and logistics involved were massive) are revelatory.
  
  Edit:
  
  What I would really like is a follow up to Wooden World. He hints at significant differences in social and disciplinary relationships between the era covered and the subsequent "classic" Napoleonic era. Again in Command of the Ocean he also refers to major changes from the Napoleonic into the Victorian era, with a much more class-based command and disciplinary structure based less on merit and consent and more on the idea that certain Britons were born to command, the idea of an officer class. Hopefully Vol III will cover this.
  
  Edit 2: Fixed shitty wording.