The Line upon a wind. An Intimate History of the Last and Greatest War Fought at Sea Under Sail: 1793—1815

 
From the publishers
Following his [book] Frontiers, Noel Mostert's new [work] chronicles the first true “world war.” In February 1793, France declared war on Britain and Holland. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars that raged for the next twenty-two years saw European powers manoeuvering for mercantile and political advantage in a complex and ever-changing web of alliances and coalitions. By 1815, the world was a different place; age-old certainties were shattered, established dynasties and kingdoms overthrown […] and a new age was dawning.
This was to be the longest, hardest and cruelest war ever fought at sea, on a scale comparable only with the Second World War. Methods of battle under sail, little changed for centuries, would be forced to adapt at an unprecedented pace that brought with it the fearsome power of rockets, torpedoes and submarines. The Line Upon a Wind is also the story of the daily lives of the sailors on board the fighting ships, the blood and guts ferocity of engagement in an age of gentility, the struggle of ships' surgeons to repair broken bodies and the daily struggle to keep the men fed and free of disease. It is a story of ordinary men and extraordinary bravery. […]
 
About the author
Noel Mostert is the author of Frontiers: the Epic of South Africa's Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa Peo (Knopf 1992)