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The Royal Marines: From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force. By Julian Thompson. London: Pan Books, 2001. ISBN 0-330-37702-7. Maps. Photographs. Appendixes. Glossary. Notes. Index. Pp. xv, 701. £10.00.
By Sea, By Land: The Royal Mannes, 1919-1997-An Authorised History. By James D. Ladd. Rev. and updated ed. London: HarperCollins, 1998 [1980]. ISBN 0-00-472366-X. Maps. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvii, 606. £16.80.
The Royal Marines: 1664 to the Present. By Richard Brooks. London: Constable & Robinson, 2002. ISBN 0-094-80390-0. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. Pp. x, 340. £25.00.
A Short History of the Royal Marines, 1664-2002. Special Publication 25. Portsmouth, U.K.: Royal Marines Historical Society, 2002. ISBN 0- 9536163-1-2. Illustrations. Appendixes. Pp. 144. £6.00.
The common trait shared by the books under review here is an overview approach to the history of Britain's "Soldiers of the Sea." By having a tactical focus, they also follow in a tradition of earlier histories of the Royal Marine Corps stretching back to the nineteenth century. Each volume, however, also has its own distinctive attributes.
A Short History of the Royal Marines, 1664-2002, is a succinct history of the Corps. Three retired Royal Marine officers turned accomplished historians and archivists, Major Alistair Donald, Major Mark Bentinck, and Captain Derek Oakley, MBE, are cited as the authors in the preface. Their book follows in approach two previous twentieth century short histories of the Corps: A. Cecil Hampshire, The Royal Marines Tercentenary, 1664-1964 (1964), and...