Naval Policy between the Wars; [Volume] 2: The Period of Reluctant Rearmament, 1930-1939

London: Collins, 1976. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good/Fair. 525, [3] pages. Footnotes. Glossary of Abbreviations. Illustrations. Appendices, Supplement to Bibliography. Index. DJ has wear, tears and soiling. Substantial pencil underlining noted. Signed with sentiment on the half-title page. Includes Glossary of Abbreviations and Foreword, and chapters on Setting the Stage 1929-1930; The London Naval Conference, 1929-1930; Financial Stringency and Disarmament 1929-1931; Invergordon, September 1931, and the Aftermath; the Failure of the Search for Disarmament 1932-1933; First Moves for Rearmament 1933-1934; The Naval Aviation Controversy 1930-1935; More Sealing Wax than Ships 1935-1936; Crisis in the Middle East, 1935-1936; The Second London Naval Conference 1935-1936; The Beginning of Rearmament 1936-1937; The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939; The Naval Aviation Controversy Resolved 1936-1939; The Road to War 1938-1939; and The Last Months of Peace 1939. Captain Stephen Wentworth Roskill, CBE, DSC, FBA, DLitt (1 August 1903 - 4 November 1982) was a senior career officer of the Royal Navy, serving during WWII and served as the official historian of the Royal Navy from 1949 to 1960. He is remembered as a prodigious author of books on British maritime history. He was the senior British observer at the Bikini Atomic tests in 1946, and served as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, 1946-48. On retiring in 1948, Roskill was appointed by the Cabinet Office Historical Section to write the official naval history of the Second World War. His three volume work The War at Sea was published between 1954 and 1961. Picking up the story in 1930, this volume covers the rise of the European dictatorships alongside continuing attempts at controlling arms expenditure through diplomacy and treaties. Eventually, Italian, German, and indeed Japanese aggression diminished the prospects for peace, to the point where Britain felt forced to rearm. The Navy's use of the precious few years leading up to the outbreak of war is a crucial section of the book and forms a fitting conclusion to this important study of the inter-war years. Interspersed with the main history of this crucial period are chapters of intense interest on the Mutiny at Ivergordon (perhaps the most balanced and penetrating account yet published) and on the Spanish Civil War. The Crisis in the Middle East brought about by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the questions involved for Britain as a Mediterranean power, and the over-extension of resources entailed by our commitments in the Far East are examined, criticized, and evaluated carefully and sympathetically. Stephen Roskill conceived Naval Policy Between the Wars as a peacetime equivalent of the official naval histories, filling the gap between the First World War volumes and his own study of the Navy in the Second World War. As such, it is marked by the extensive use of British and American sources, from which Roskill extracted shrewd and balanced conclusions that have stood the test of time.