The Rules of the GameRecommendations

This book was lauded for giving an absorbing education in naval strategy and tactics, as well as Victorian social views and the impact of character on history. The author comes closer than any historian yet to describing what was underlying the much recounted actions of this legendary 1916 conflict at Jutland by contrasting an operational with a cultural subject. Despite the fact that the British fleet defeated the Germans, the cost in ships and men was great, and disputes have raged ever since in British naval circles over why the Royal Navy was unable to capitalize on the situation. Andrew Gordon focuses on what he considers a fault-line between two incompatible types of tactical leadership and distinct understandings of the rules of the game inside the Royal Navy in this book.