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Peter Padfield


—Peter Padfield’s latest book about naval warfare is Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind .

Articles by this Author

Naval Battle, May/June 2000 | Vol. 51, No. 3
Battle can never be civilized, but in a century of total war and almost total barbarism it is refreshing to look back upon chivalrous combat. If it is gallantry and honor, even quixotism, you thirst for in a barren time, they are at their highest in the duel between His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Shannon and the United States frigate Chesapeake , which met off Boston in the calm, early evening of June 1, 1813. Here is an authoritative and totally absorbing description of that famous encounter, together with an account of the principals, Captain P. B. V. Broke and Captain James Lawrence.