[IVA]∎ Download Cochrane The Real Master and Commander David Cordingly 9781582345345 Books

Cochrane The Real Master and Commander David Cordingly 9781582345345 Books

Download As PDF : Cochrane The Real Master and Commander David Cordingly 9781582345345 Books

Cochrane The Real Master and Commander David Cordingly 9781582345345 Books

Biog. of a titled Scottish British Naval Officer 1775-1860. He was adventuresome, clever, resourceful, inventive, skilled in mechanics and sailing and a political radical. His only failing was not to keep his good connections in Britain’s naval and political world. He was successful against the French navy sometimes resulting in “prize” ships. Then, after his downfall and disgrace from a stock scandal, he took the helm of the Chilean Navy to liberate them, the Peruvians and then Brazilians from Spanish domination at sea; his only mishap was with the Greeks against the Turks. Fortunately, due to his perseverance, he was able to return to England and restore his good name and naval position. His exploits are written in context with the political and naval environment. Many primary sources are used. Like Cochrane’s life, the book never has a dull moment. Epilogue, Glossary, Appendix, Bibliography, Notes, Index, Illustrations, Maps, Diagrams. CD available.


Tags : Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander [David Cordingly] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>From the bestselling author of Under the Black Flag, </i>comes the definitive biography of the swashbuckling 19th century maritime hero upon whom Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower are based.</b> Nicknamed le loup des mers</i> ( the sea wolf ) by Napoleon,David Cordingly,Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander,Bloomsbury USA,1582345341,Admirals;Great Britain;Biography.,Great Britain;History, Naval;19th century.,Great Britain;Naval history.,1775-1860,Admirals,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Military,BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography Autobiography,Biography.,BiographyAutobiography,Dundonald, Thomas Cochrane,,Earl of,,GENERAL,General Adult,Great Britain,Great BritainBritish Isles,HISTORY General,HISTORY Military Naval,Historical,Historical - British,Military,Military - Naval,Military Naval,NAVAL HISTORY (GENERAL),NAVAL HISTORY - MODERN,Non-Fiction,United States,sears,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY Military,HISTORY General,HISTORY Military Naval,Historical,Historical - British,Military,Military - Naval,Military Naval,Biography Autobiography,1775-1860,Admirals,Biography,Biography.,Dundonald, Thomas Cochrane,,Earl of,,Great Britain,sears,Biography And Autobiography,Naval History - Modern,Biography & Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography

Cochrane The Real Master and Commander David Cordingly 9781582345345 Books Reviews

Cordingly does a masterful job with this book. As someone who has read extensively on the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, I truly enjoyed the sections about Cochrane in South America. The fact that Cochrane had the temerity to abscond with a warship and head back to Britain blew me away! Most readers will enjoy this book even more if they have little background in the Age of Sail. Cordingly writes well without getting "hung up in the weeds," as historians are prone to do. This work deserves the five star rating.
"Cochrane The Real Master and Commander" by David Cordingly is the biography of Thomas Cochrane, British naval commander during and after the Napoleonic Wars. His exploits have been drawn on for such fictional naval heroes Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey. Cochrane not only served with the British navy but also was instrumental in the fight for colonial independence of Chile, Brazil, and Greece. Always outspoken, he made many enemies in the government resulting in false accusations of stock fraud, imprisonment, and loss of national honors. His forty year fight to clear his name took much the same courage as battles on the sea. This story of a little remembered naval hero needs to be read.
Chances are you've already heard of Horatio Hornblower, Jack Aubrey, maybe even Frank Mildmay. But how about Thomas Cochrane, the real life British naval officer upon whose life and career all of these fictional characters are at least in part based?

That's what I thought. Don't worry, David Cordingly's Cochrane The Real Master and Commander has got you covered.

The best biographies illuminate not only their title character but the time and place in which that character lives, and this book does that in spades, with some eye-opening revelations. For one thing, I had no idea that the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars were on the whole, well, pirates.

Oh yes, they were, and I'll tell you why. The British Navy was essentially a money-making proposition in those days. Whenever a British ship caught an enemy ship, it would be sent back to England where it would be assessed by the Admiralty and assigned a value, one-eighth of which was then shared among the officers and crew of the capturing ship. The more enemy ships they captured, the more prize money they made, and Cochrane, whose improvident father had cost the family the hereditary estate, was forever in a row with whoever was in charge about getting full value for the ships he captured.

An eye ever to the main chance Cochrane may have had, but he was also by everyone's account, even his enemies', of which he made many, a master mariner. Cordingly writes that some of Cochrane's actions, described in full in you-are-there prose, are still cited by naval historians as the best of their kind. He was his own worst enemy on land but at sea he was unsurpassed. He wreaked havoc with Napoleon's navy up and down the coasts of France and Spain, and not for nothing did the French call him "le loup de mer," or the Seawolf.

Ashore, though, he involved himself in radical politics and made enemies of people in power, especially in the Navy. He was intemperate and mouthy, which, allied with a burning and fatal desire to achieve better pay and conditions for his officers and men, started the downward spiral. The British Admiralty just wasn't there yet. When, inevitably, he made England too hot to hold him, he went to South America, where as, sequentially, chief of naval operations for both countries he assisted immeasurably in Chile and Brazil's wars of independence with Spain, and later and less gloriously in Greece's war of independence with Turkey.

He had a keen scientific curiosity and the patience for experimentation which caused him to spend a great portion of his aforesaid prize money on experimenting with, among other things, lamps, steam engines and bitumin (aka asphalt). He was a passionate and faithful husband to his not always worthy wife, and what money he didn't spend on scientific experimentation and petitions for reinstatement in the British Navy was employed to bail their worthless children out of hock.

This book is beautifully produced, with many detailed maps, marvelous cutaway illustrations of two of Cochrane's ships so you can practically walk the decks right next to him, three sections of contemporary paintings of friends and colleagues, including many portraits of Cochrane himself at every age, ships of his time, seascapes of sea battles and ports of call and scenes of engagement. There is even a glossary at the back to teach you the difference between bombarde and bumboat, and more illustrations throughout, such as a reproduction of the recruiting poster Cochrane had made up to entice a ship's crew to the Pallas. "My lads," says the poster, "The rest of the GALLEONS with the Treasure from LA PLATA are waiting half loaded at CARTAGENA...Such a Chance perhaps will never occur again."

That was appealing to their better natures, all right.

Cordingly's Cochrane is a rousing tale, all the more astonishing because it's all absolutely true. A wonderful read.
I think I am correct in saying that I have read all of the biographies of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, published in the last few decades, and I would rate this volume as the being the best of all, giving good coverage of all phases of Cochrane's long naval and political careers. Unlike some authors, Cordingly is careful to match Cochrane's own accounts of his activities against other primary sources, and to give equal balance to Cochrane's activities in the wars for South American independence with those during the Napoleonic Wars.

Cochrane was an extraordinary man, his genuine history perhaps more amazing than any of the fiction inspired by his real-world activities, this is a biography that does him justice, lauding his good qualities and achievements without hiding his flaws and failures.
Biog. of a titled Scottish British Naval Officer 1775-1860. He was adventuresome, clever, resourceful, inventive, skilled in mechanics and sailing and a political radical. His only failing was not to keep his good connections in Britain’s naval and political world. He was successful against the French navy sometimes resulting in “prize” ships. Then, after his downfall and disgrace from a stock scandal, he took the helm of the Chilean Navy to liberate them, the Peruvians and then Brazilians from Spanish domination at sea; his only mishap was with the Greeks against the Turks. Fortunately, due to his perseverance, he was able to return to England and restore his good name and naval position. His exploits are written in context with the political and naval environment. Many primary sources are used. Like Cochrane’s life, the book never has a dull moment. Epilogue, Glossary, Appendix, Bibliography, Notes, Index, Illustrations, Maps, Diagrams. CD available.