N.A.M. Rodger's The Wooden Walls

The Wooden World An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy N. A. M. Rodger's The Wooden World is, as the subtitle suggests, a study or description rather than a history of the Royal Navy during the period of the Seven Years War, 1755 to 1763, while also drawing evidence from the whole period from 1740 to 1775. Rodger pays very little attention to the actual events of the period. Rodger's purpose in writing the book was to test and compare …

…the floating hell as depicted in much popular fiction. The evidence and the arguments portrayed in N. A. M. Rodger's The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy refute the traditional view of the mid 18th century Royal Navy, brutal discipline, oppressive officers, and badly treated, inadequately fed sailors. The vast amount of evidence included in his work allows Rodger to overturn the widely accepted, conventional view of the Navy of this time period.