Empire of the Seas

"Heart of Oaks" opens with a dramatic retelling of 16th and 17th century history and how victory over the Armada turned an impoverished England into a seafaring nation. With access to the modern Navy and reconstructed ships of the time, Snow recounts the Navy's metamorphosis from a rabble of West Country freebooters to possibly the most complex industrial enterprise on earth.

Snow charts the period from 1690 to 1759 and reveals how England – soon to be Britain – and her Navy, rose from the depths of military and economic disaster to achieve global supremacy. So that by 1759, for the first time in her history, Britannia really did rule the waves.

Dan Snow sheds light on the evolution of Nelson’s Navy and the national enterprise which supported it. Through the stories of naval heroes like Captain Cook, Charles Middleton and Admiral Nelson, Snow explores the elite training, the growing navel meritocracy and years of tough experience which created a ruthless and professional ‘Band of Brothers’.

Dan explores the ups and downs of a climactic 19th century in naval and British history. Rapacious and ruthless, the Navy used ‘gunboat diplomacy’ to push British interest further afield than ever before, the control of the sea was the key to Britain’s growing wealth…