In his introduction, Professor Murfett acknowledges but does not apologise for the fact that this is a work based on secondary sources and is written in narrative form. Anyone expecting this book to provide revisionist insights into narrow naval issues, might initially be disappointed, especially if they have spent what is quite an eye-watering amount of money for a volume that is hefty in weight, despite being printed in an uncompromisingly small type-face with the occasional very long and dense paragraph, which has no photographs and which segregates all the maps at the back of the volume. But open-minded readers will very soon discover that they have something very different from the usual run of serious modern works of naval history in front of them.

This is a glorious work of synthesis which gathers all the issues together and by so doing gets close to demonstrating the real complexity of the issues that the naval leaders of the Second World War had to face and make sense of. The sheer simultaneity of the events that Professor Murfett describes is the important point which more limited naval histories so often lose sight of. There is a good example on page 196 where one paragraph on Midway is followed by another on the Battle of the Atlantic and a third on the Arctic convoys — but this was the reality that decision-makers had to deal with in dividing their efforts, attentions and resources amongst so many competing commitments. Such reminders of the real complexities of contemporary decision-making make one much more understanding of, even sympathetic to, the leaders whose choices had unhappy consequences. It is impossible really to understand the dilemmas facing Churchill, Admiral Pound and the British Admiralty in mid 1941 when confronting the issue of whether to reinforce their position in Singapore without taking such complexities fully into account. This chronologically organised account does just that.

The book, nonetheless, manages to combine the necessary comprehensiveness of approach with telling illustrations of matters of detail. This is no bland and generalised review. The author manages to combine breadth with sometimes surprising depth particularly on less familiar topics such as the wartime performance of the Soviet Navy, the ‘Battle of the Pips’ in the American re-taking of the Aleutians (p. 273), the scuttling of the Danish fleet (p. 281), the German retreat from Kerch (p. 296) and so on.

But this is a remarkable book for another quite separate reason, and that is that it is absolutely invaluable as a primer into the naval history of the Second World War, that is not just those events as a story, as a sequence of events, but what historians have made of them all. Assuming that the publishers have the wit to recognise its possibilities, a more accessible, paperback version of this book will surely become the standard text for courses on the Second World War at sea because it provides an outstanding review of all the current debates about the subject. The bibliography lists about 1,300 books and articles all told and the excellent and unobtrusive referencing system offers detailed and comprehensive guidance to each issue as it comes. Students will find this a quite invaluable guide to modern naval history. The last chapter, moreover, offers a very sensible and balanced review of the book's findings which again will gently steer the reader into understanding what the naval history of this period is all about.

From the point of view of naval history both as an accessible record and explanation of events, and as an intellectual discipline, Naval warfare 1919–1945 is a truly remarkable book and is highly recommended to all readers of the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. The wider naval war between 1939 and 1945 determined operational priorities for the British and explains how they allocated resources between the many theatres of war in which they were engaged. Since this allocation resulted in the loss of Singapore, Malaya and Burma – a strategic reverse that Churchill in 1944–45 was determined to rectify – it had major consequences for the rest of the Second World War and for the subsequent history of Southeast Asia. Even if you cannot afford the hard-back version, ensure that your local library gets a copy so as to encourage the eventual appearance of the paperback that you can and should afford!