Nelson the Admiral

Horatio Nelson was one of the most successful leaders Britain has ever produced. A legend in his own lifetime, he has inspired many hundreds of books. But few of these have concentrated on him as a naval commander - indeed the last major such study was published over thirty years ago.

Since then much new material has emerged, both as a result of the Nelson Letters Project and in a series of international conferences on Nelson's battles involving French, Spanish and Danish historians. In particular, the discovery of Nelson's personal order books and battle plans have transformed our understanding of his command methods.

Colin White has been at the forefront of all these developments and has made many of the most exciting new discoveries himself. He is therefore ideally placed to offer a fresh analysis of Nelson's tactics and leadership style.

White presents new narratives of all three of Nelson's great battles, the Nile (1798), Copenhagen (1801) and Trafalgar (1805). He shows how the British triumph at Trafalgar was the culmination of years of thought and experimentation on Nelson's part, and by his contemporaries and predecessors. He also uses the new material to demonstrate Nelson's remarkable administrative skills, and his abilities as a diplomat and intelligence officer - aspects of his leadership that have not been fully highlighted before.

The result is a different portrait of Nelson as an admiral - more rounded and more insightful than any yet achieved.

Officially endorsed by the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Museum, the book is illustrated in colour and black and white with over seventy images drawn from the collections of the Royal Naval Museum and National Maritime Museum, and with specially drawn diagrams illustrating Nelson's battles and campaigns.