The Saber and Scroll Journal • Volume 9 , Number 3 • Winter 2020
Michael Romero American Public University
Michael Palmer , Stoddert ’ s War : Naval Operations during the Quasi-War with France , 1798 – 1801 ( Classics of Naval Literature ). Annapolis : Naval Institute Press , 2000 . ISBN 1557506647 , pp . 350 . Hardcover , out of print .
Michael A . Palmer served in
the US Navy , worked for the
Naval Historical Center , and worked for many years in the history department at East Carolina University . His books on history cover material on land and at sea from the sixteenth century to beyond the first Gulf War . Originally published in 1987 by the University of South Carolina Press and rereleased as one of the US Naval Institute ’ s Classics of Naval Literature in 2000 , Michael Palmer ’ s first book , Stoddert ’ s War , is currently accessible only through libraries and used booksellers . This is a problem that needs rectifying , as Palmer ’ s examination of the nascent US Navy at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offers surprisingly relevant lessons to the present day .
Michael Palmer wrote to fill a void when the first edition of Stoddert ’ s War was released ; as of 1987 , there had been no scholarly treatment of the Quasi-War published since Gardener Allen ’ s Our Naval War with France in 1909 . Allen ’ s book concentrated primarily on the “ stirring exploits ” of the different tactical actions which took place , but Palmer sought to write more of an operational history that examines the strategy and policy of Benjamin Stoddert , the first Secretary of the Navy and illuminates the events in Europe that brought about the Quasi-War in the first place . Palmer accomplishes this through an exhaustive study of letters , logbooks , policy documents , and especially the seven volumes of Naval Documents Related to the Quasi-War Between
201 doi : 10.18278 / sshj . 9.3.14