The British Navy, Economy and Society in the Seven Years War

This book, by a leading French maritime historian, discusses how Britain's success in the Seven Years' War (1756-63) was made possible by a superb victualling system for the British navy. It shows how this system had been developed over the preceding centuries, how it balanced carefully the advantages of state control with the flexibility of commercial contracting, and how the system was designed to mesh with and support British strategic ambitions. The book provides rich detail on how the system worked, how it was administered, how key products were priced, bought, stored and transported including to forward bases, and how it compared, very favourably, to equivalent systems in France and elsewhere. The book goes beyond maritime history by discussing how naval supply provided a huge stimulus for British finance, agriculture, trade and manufacturing, and argues that all this together was one of the principal causes of Britain's later Industrial Revolution. Christian Buchet is Professor of Modern History at the Catholic University of Paris, supervisor of the Franco-Iberian-American Centre for Maritime History, a member of the French National Maritime Academy (Académie de Marine), and author of twelve books. 'A very important analysis of British naval victualling, with implications for economic as well as naval history.' Nicholas Rodger