The American Revolution was a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no less than 22 navies fighting on five oceans - to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French, and American history. Simultaneous naval campaigns were fought in the English Channel, in the North and Mid-Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, off South Africa, in the Indian Ocean, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in the North Sea and, of course, off the Eastern Seaboard of America. Not until the Second World War would any nation actively fight in so many different theaters.

In The Struggle for Sea Power, Sam Willis traces every key military event in the path to American independence from a naval perspective, and he brings this important viewpoint to bear on economic, political, and social developments that were fundamental to the success of the Revolution. In doing so, Willis offers valuable new insights to American, British, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russian history. The result is a far more profound understanding of the influence of sea power upon history, of the American path to independence, and of the rise and fall of the British Empire.