{"product_id":"sober-men-and-true-9780674007369","title":"Sober Men and True","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis work allows the reader to hear from sailors who served in the Royal Navy during the first half of the 20th century. The author has scoured sailors' diaries, letters, memoirs, and oral interviews to uncover the lives and secret thoughts of British men of the lower deck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSober Men and True\u003c\/i\u003e recounts the lives of the enlisted men who served in Britain's Royal Navy from the dreadnought era through World War II, from Gallipoli and Jutland to Taranto and Normandy. With his characteristic diligence, keen insight and superb literary grace, Christopher McKee brings to pulsating life a maritime society of working-class men that has now disappeared. He honors these British naval ratings and demonstrates that the Royal Navy was truly blessed to have such steady hearts of oak beating below decks in its last days of imperial majesty. His glowing and humane achievement will be deeply appreciated. -- Kenneth J. Hagan, author of \u003ci\u003eThis People's Navy: The Making of American Sea Power\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis beautifully written and engaging reconstruction of the 'inner worlds' of British naval ratings in the first half of the twentieth century will delight and entertain. A \u003ci\u003etour de force\u003c\/i\u003e! -- Peter Karsten, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Naval Aristocracy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is not ships but men that make a navy, observed one great British admiral. In \u003ci\u003eSober Men and True\u003c\/i\u003e, Christopher McKee brings to life the men who made the Royal Navy such a success. Their success was built on professionalism, courage, commitment and loyalty, human qualities that can best be understood through McKee's brilliant analysis. -- Andrew Lambert, author of \u003ci\u003eWar at Sea in the Age of Sail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMcKee's elegantly written history of travel and tradition, rum and religion, skylarking and sex, and combat and comradeship, provides the reader with multi-dimensional and iconoclastic portraits of British seamen during the dreadnought era. -- Michael Palmer, author of \u003ci\u003eStoddert's War: Naval Operations During the Quasi-War With France, 1798-1801\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA vivid recreation of lower-deck life, full of psychological insights.  We have had so little real social history of the 20th-century Royal Navy, that this will open up completely new vistas. -- N.A.M. Rodger, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn evocative portrait of a unique and now vanished society. McKee has brought this world to life in an insightful and fascinating manner. -- Ronald Spector, author of \u003ci\u003eAt War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMcKee's cumulative portrait shows the danger, boredom (and ways of combating it), camaraderie, discipline, diet, and many other mundane details of a sailor's life that are rarely encountered in the romantic renderings of fiction. Vivid and full of personality, this portrait of life below decks during the first half of the last century is very readable and is recommended. -- Michael F. Russo * Library Journal *\u003cbr\u003eA meticulously researched look at the lives of sailors serving in the British Royal Navy during the first half of the 20th century. McKee...here paints a portrait that contravenes commonly held stereotypes about enlisted sailors. Such stereotypes, he argues, are generally drawn from either formal military histories written by officers and academics or from the visions of novelists and filmmakers...Rather than rely on traditional military histories, he makes use of the diaries, letters, memoirs, questionnaires, and taped recollections of the former sailors themselves. These documents reveal a decidedly monotonous and often dangerous shipboard existence. Interweaving conventional history and detailed enumeration of naval regulations into the sailors' own anecdotes, McKee captures the tension endemic on ships where public routine governed every moment of the day...Particularly appealing to those concerned with naval history, but written in vivid prose that will sustain the interest of more general readers as well. * Kirkus Reviews *\u003cbr\u003eThere is much to lure even the novice in naval history. The voices for one. They spill from diaries, letters, memoirs, questionnaires, and an archive of taped interviews in London's Imperial War Museum. Christopher McKee uses each to bring the \"lower deck\" alive. The seaman talk of everything, from what they ate and wore and gambled to the pleasures of shore leave, the panic of wartime, the plague of officers. -- Nina C. Ayoub * Chronicle of Higher Education *\u003cbr\u003eA rich and valuable account of the way sailors lived and worked and the kind of people they were. -- Ian Jack * London Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eThere is much more to this book than initially meets the eye...It is the only real attempt I have read to look into sailors' lives and to bring out their backgrounds, their true feelings, their thoughts on their officers, teamwork, war fighting, discipline, drink, the run ashore, and many other aspects that can only be fully understood if you are part of the lower deck. And it makes fascinating reading--all the more so because, as the book progresses, the theme is absolutely clear--sailors' lives, their thoughts, feelings and aspirations are very much the same now as they were then...\u003ci\u003eSober Men and True\u003c\/i\u003e is full of gems...[It is] a thoroughly entertaining read [and] has serious lessons for us all that are always worth revisiting. -- Martin Ewence * Naval Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction: Jack's Wrong Image    1. I Went Away to Join the Navy   2. They Were Officers and You Were Not   3. The Finest and Most Sincere Crowd of Men   4. I Never Thought I'd See Daylight Again   5. This Rum It Was Wonderful Stuff   6. A Sailor's Paradise   7. Traveling with an Oar on My Shoulder    Appendix 1: Ratings in the Royal Navy, 1914   Appendix 2: Ratings in the Royal Navy, 1943   Appendix 3: Daily Standard Naval Rations, 1914   Informants for Sober Men and True   Abbreviations   Notes   Acknowledgments   Index","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49403514454359,"sku":"9780674007369","price":45.86,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780674007369.jpg?v=1730483696","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/sober-men-and-true-9780674007369","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}