Publication
Description
From one of the most distinguished admirals of our time and a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, a meditation on leadership and character refracted through the lives of ten of the most illustrious naval commanders in history In Sailing True North, Admiral Stavridis offers lessons of leadership and character from the lives and careers of history's most significant naval commanders. He also brings a lifetime of reflection to bear on the subjects of his study--naval history, the vocation of the admiral, and global geopolitics. Above all, this is a book that will help you navigate your own life's voyage: the voyage of leadership of course, but more important, the voyage of character. Sailing True North helps us find the right course to chart. Simply as epic lives, the tales of these ten admirals offer up a collection of the greatest imaginable sea stories. Moreover, spanning 2,500 years from ancient Greece to the twenty-first century, Sailing True North is a book that offers a history of the world through the prism of our greatest naval leaders. None of the admirals in this volume were perfect, and some were deeply flawed. But from Themistocles, Drake, and Nelson to Nimitz, Rickover, and Hopper, important themes emerge, not least that serving your reputation is a poor substitute for serving your character; and that taking time to read and reflect is not a luxury, it's a necessity. By putting us on personal terms with historic leaders in the maritime sphere he knows so well, James Stavridis gives us a compass that can help us navigate the story of our own lives, wherever that voyage takes us.… (more)
Collection
User reviews
As its title suggests Sailing True North is a collection of mini-biographies of ten admirals throughout history. One would think that they were chosen for their sangfroid and brilliance in battle, and in some cases it was. Nelson, Drake and the Greek admiral Themistocles had those qualities in spades. Others, though, had other qualities that aren’t often found in men of action. Some never even spent much, if any, time at sea. They included innovators, admirals whose vision and determination changed not only the navies they served but the world itself. Zheng He, a eunuch slave, made himself so indispensable to the Chinese court that the emperor gave him command of the navy and the resources to build a the largest deep-water fleet the world had ever seen. Historian Alfred Thayer Mahan, a reluctant sailor, literally wrote the book that reshaped geopolitics for generations to come. Chester Nimitz spent almost the entirety of World War II ashore in Hawaii yet took command of a fleet still smoldering from the attack on Pearl Harbor, rebuilt it and brilliantly directed the greatest sea battles in history. Others, Lord John Arbuthnot Thayer, Hyman Rickover and Grace Hopper, each propelled the world’s navies into a new age, from wooden ships to steel, to nuclear power and into the digital age.
What makes this book unique is that Stavridis examine the life and career of each of these admirals and extracts what he believes is the essential character trait that shaped their actions. Themistocles’ charisma enabled him to instill in his ships’ crews the will and determination to take on and defeat a vastly superior Persian fleet. Nimitz’s ‘self-confidence and an inner and sense of balance’ gave him the ability to direct the actions of the admirals and generals waging war in the Pacific. He said of Nimitz, "Especially in today's media environment, personality is an essential foundation piece of any leaders message. And while it is tempting to let emotion drive personality, the true acme of character is sublimating anger, pettiness, and impulse in favor of a cool, calm temperament. This was the genius of Nimitz."
In most cases Stavridis character studies shed light on the subjects but in others it seemed to me that the author was struggling to find superlatives to fit the formula of his book. As a lover of sea stories, I occasionally wished for more stories and less psychoanalysis. Stavridis makes a good argument, though, that character is something that the world lacks today.
Most of us want to be part of a society that is dependable, predictable, and stable – but this turbulent twenty-first century resembles that less and less. The stories we hear seem chaotic, disconnected and thematically barren: school shootings of children by other children; wars without end in the Middle East;…leaders who routinely lie, cheat and steal; followers who act out in spasms of anger, fulfilling Tocqueville’s dire nineteenth-century prediction that the tragedy of democracy will be that in the end we elect the government we deserve.
*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.
FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star – The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.