Evolution or Revolution? British Naval Policy in the Fisher Era

Abstract

This article outlines recent trends in the scholarship on the Royal Navy in the years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. It explains the evolution of the historiography on the topic and outlines how and why new approaches are required to progress our understanding of the topic henceforth.

Key Words:

• Royal Navy
• First World War
• Arms Race
• Fisher

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew S. Seligmann

Matthew S. Seligmann is Reader in History at Brunel University London. He is the author of Rivalry in Southern Africa, 1893–99 (1998); Spies in Uniform: British Military and Naval Intelligence on Germany on the Eve of the First World War (2006); Naval Intelligence from Germany: The Reports of the British Naval Attachés in Berlin, 1906–1914 (2007); and The Royal Navy and the German Threat, 1900–1914 (2012); he is co-editor of the 2014 Navy Records Society volume on the Anglo-German Naval Race, The Naval Route to the Abyss: The Anglo-German Naval Race 1895–1914.

David Morgan-Owen

David Morgan-Owen has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Museum of the Royal Navy and is now lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College London. His publications include ‘“History is a Record of Exploded Ideas”: Sir John Fisher and Home Defence, 1904–1910’, International History Review (2014), ‘An “Intermediate” Blockade? British North Sea Strategy, 1912–1914’, War in History (forthcoming November 2015) and ‘Cooked up in the dinner hour? Sir Arthur Wilson’s War Plan Reconsidered’, English Historical Review (forthcoming). He is currently preparing a forthcoming monograph, The Invasion Question: 1888–1918.