American Naval History provides concise, year-to-year summaries of events in the history of the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps from the Revolution onward, making it an ideal reference for naval enthusiasts as well as students and historians. More than 225 illustrations support a text that is nearly encyclopedic in coverage, and four indexes give the reader immediate access to material. Originally published in 1984, this popular chronology has been compiled and updated by Jack Sweetman, a longtime professor of naval history at the U. S. Naval Academy. Dr. Sweetman offers much more than a simple catalog of naval facts. He also explains the consequences of major events, and when dealing with the episodes of particular significance, he provides a series of entries to show stages of development and give a sense of continuity.This new edition adds further information about the decade from the Gulf War through the turn of the century, a period that included nuclear weapons reductions, the end of the Cold War, and Operation Sea Angel, a humanitarian action credited with saving thirty thousand lives. The decade also saw a focus on littoral warfare, recurrent air and missile strikes on Iraq, the ill-starred intervention in Somalia, and the restoration of democracy in Haiti. Along with these events, Dr. Sweetman discusses the growing role of women in uniform, emergency evacuations of American citizens from trouble spots abroad, the rescue of Scott O'Grady, the air war with Yugoslavia, the controversy over Vieques, the recovery of the CSS Hunley, the tragic attack on the USS Cole, and the war in Afghanistan. Read Less