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Title: A rehash that offers nothing new
Review: Friedman's shallowly researched book offers nothing beyond what's been published before. He appears to have relied on secondary sources nearly exclusively, which is sad when there is so much good information available in the ship action reports, squadron reports, and so on.Disappiontingly, the bibliography credits just seven primary sources, and a few of these are just single letters from survivors to the author.The book doesn't take you far beyond what others -- Thomas Cutler and Samuel Eliot Morison -- have already offered. The writing is serviceable, but does not breathe magic into a story that is so rich with it.
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