The Navy Capital of the World (VA): Hampton Roads Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This book is great for a a digestible overview of all the US Navy happenings in the Hampton Roads region, and for this reason it is valuable. Yarsinske handles the long run of Navy history in the region fairly well and her writing is easy to follow and engaging. There is no doubt that she is familiar with the history of all of the Navy installations. There also are lots of great photographs in her study, many of which will not be familiar to the average student of Virginia Navy history.
I do wish that she or the publisher would have allowed for an index and a proper bibliography. This is, after all, a history book that should be able to support its analysis and discussion points with direct reference to primary records and/or secondary sources. Instead, a brief paragraph discussing "Sources" is provided. This paragraph begins with the statement that "Every effort was made to consult primary source material in the compilation of this volume." This is very difficult to believe. Any historian who has attempted primary research on a Navy installation at the National Archives can attest to the abundance and diversity of textual, photographic, and cartographic records, especially for bases in the Hampton Roads region.
Additionally, the post-World War II analysis is very slim, and there is no discussion of integration. This would have been especially interesting, particularly because Virginia was and is a Southern state. Yarsinske does not incorporate the Hampton Roads Navy history into the broader context of US Naval history other than the obvious: World War I ignited further expansion, World War II did the same, etc. But this was not her goal, so this may be unfair.

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From the famous Civil War ironclads that clashed in its waters to the great battleships that gathered off Norfolk's Sewell's Point as part of President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, the Hampton Roads region of Virginia has maintained a proud naval tradition. Into the twentieth century, the maritime region has remained on the cutting edge of military technology as the nucleus for the birth of naval aviation and the training site for scores of men who stormed the beaches of Europe and the Pacific during World War II. Through her fascinating research and incredible array of rare and striking photographs, military historian Amy Waters Yarsinske guides readers through the storied history of the navy in Hampton Roads.