• The War for All the Oceans

  • From Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo
  • By: Roy Adkins, Lesley Adkins
  • Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
  • Length: 21 hrs and 59 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (141 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The War for All the Oceans  By  cover art

The War for All the Oceans

By: Roy Adkins, Lesley Adkins
Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $22.35

Buy for $22.35

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Roy Adkins, with his wife, Lesley, returns to the Napoleonic War in The War for All the Oceans, a gripping account of the naval struggle that lasted from 1798 to 1815, a period marked at the beginning by Napoleon's seizing power and at the end by the War of 1812. In this vivid and visceral account, Adkins draws on eyewitness records to portray not only the battles but also the details of a sailor's life: shipwrecks, press-gangs, prostitutes, spies, and prisoners of war.

The War for All the Oceans is epic narrative history, sure to appeal to fans of Patrick O'Brian and C. S. Forester, as well as all readers of military and social history.

©2007 Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Sumptuous storytelling." (Kirkus)
"Vivid....[A] rollicking saga." (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about The War for All the Oceans

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    52
  • 4 Stars
    39
  • 3 Stars
    37
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    36
  • 4 Stars
    20
  • 3 Stars
    11
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    9
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    44
  • 4 Stars
    20
  • 3 Stars
    11
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    4

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Good material, horrid narration

If any one thing detracts from the wealth of information in this classic on British naval warfare, it is Patrick Lawlor's amateurish narration. His ludicrously affected British, French, and Scottish accents, mispronunciations and sing-song prose recital should make the authors cringe.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

The Other Story about the Napoleonic Wars

The book covers the Napoleonic Wars from the perspective of the naval battles. It argues that the British blockade of much of Europe was the real reason for the downfall of Napoleon. The blockade gradually put more and more pressure on Napoleon, gradually reducing his options, and inevitably pushing him to make mistakes, which eventually lead to his downfall.

I think that this perspective is perhaps the dominate part of the truth, but still only part of the truth. Still I think it’s an important point, and the author, probably, meant no more than this.

The only fault is that it’s not that gripping a book. The style is a collection of short stories, which seems a good choose for this subject. But the narrative quality of the short stories seemed highly variable. Some were captivating, many were not.

Maps would help!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book!

Would you listen to The War for All the Oceans again? Why?

The authors obviously did a great deal of research into the letters and writings of people who actually took part in making this history. Most of the material they quote is not from the elites but from common sailors, wives, prostitutes, prisoners of war, young officers, criminals, women aboard British warships, impressed Americans, smugglers, parole breakers, and otherwise unknown and disreputable participants. For me, this brought historical events into sharp focus.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The War for All the Oceans?

No single memorable moment, rather it is the compilation of hundreds of individual moments, each as perfect as if captured in amber, that makes this history so compelling.

Which scene was your favorite?

One of the best stories about the British navy in the Napoleonic era that highlights the sensibilities of the age involves the visit of the Queen to a battleship just newly arrived back in England. The sailors, being sailors, had brought aboard hundreds of prostitutes, which was a common practice in the British navy at the time. The Captain ordered that they be kept below decks while the Queen toured the ship. But, the Queen, being the Queen, looked down into a passageway and saw these women staring up at her as if she were from another planet. She immediately ordered that the women be allowed to come up on deck so they could see what was going on. Priceless!

Any additional comments?

A lot of comments here about the reader, most of them negative. Too bad. I enjoyed Lawlor's narration, his comic French accent and terrible Scottish accent as well. His interpretations of the voices of all these common people who witnessed this conflict added immeasurably to their humanity and their realness.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Pretty good, if disorganized

I enjoyed the The War for All the Oceans. There were a great deal of personal letters and diary entries that gave life to the battles and even everyday life of the soldiers and seamen.

As a reader of the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, I certainly found several familiar sequences and battles.

The main drawback of the book is a bit of a tendency to skip from one story to the next and back again. To a degree it can be explained as an attempt to maintain chronology, but some anecdotes could have been completed with much less inter-splicing of material.


Overall, I found the book both entertaining and informative. I would certainly recommend it to anyone with a love for the old British Navy, or those who have an interest in the Napoleonic wars.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Narration is Bad Bad!

Could NOT finish the book the narration was annoying just plain TERRIBLE!!!

How a producer could allow this to happen to a seemly good story is beyond me!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

disappointed

I love history. I expect history to give me a good balance of the "macro" picture (the overall historical arcs in the narrative) and the "micro" picture (how individuals are recorded as living through these arcs).

I found "The War" disappointing because it did not offer a good balance of the macro and micro pictures, spending an inordinate amount of time on the micro picture. There were too many quotes and not enough analysis.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good book, terrible narration

What did you love best about The War for All the Oceans?

I've read the book, and enjoyed it enough that I bought the narration to listen to at the office. It's a good read with a mixture of big picture and local action.

How could the performance have been better?

I hate to complain, but the fact is that the narrator's performance is absolutely horrible. He seems to be American, but the book is about the Napoleonic Wars and he insists on doing accents for everyone - British, French, Scottish, etc. Someone must have thought this would help "put the listener into the story". They are almost unbearably affected, and they are both frequent and long, given the book's many quotes from original source materials. Napoleon, for example, sounds like the worst stereotype you could imagine for a Frenchman. It's so below the quality of the book itself that I can't imagine how it was allowed to happen. It's literally cartoon-ish. I may not be able to finish this one.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

As noted above - the accents are infuriating. No doubt the narrator had fun doing them all, but it's so ridiculous that I may not be able even to finish listening to a book that I loved reading.

Any additional comments?

Please re-issue this book with a new, non-childish narration!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Narration is not that bad

I put off this book for months, due to the bad reviews of the narrator, which seemed to be corroborated by the sample from the first few paragraphs of the book. Eventually I decided to take a chance, and was glad I did.

The narrator gets into a decent rhythm, and his American accent is a useful contrast to the many other accents from French and British accounts of naval battles.

This book contained a lot of stories and historical detail that I was not previously aware of, despite having read several other histories of this period, including Napoleon's Wars by Charles Esdaile.

Overall, a satisfying story with a satisfying narrator.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Well researched, but by God-no more accents!

Is there anything you would change about this book?

If you are looking for good battle accounts and an in depth look at the actual fighting during the age of sail, this is not your book. The book is well researched but delves too deeply into how the navy functioned as an institution. First person accounts do tend to liven the story but end up becoming just plain annoying as they are all done with accents.

How could the performance have been better?

PLEASE do not have one narrator do all of the accents for each nationality. For that matter, do not do accents period. The narrator's accents are passable at first, but severely detract from the enjoyment of the book the deeper you get into it. It was a struggle to finish an otherwise good but not great book due to the narrator.

Did The War for All the Oceans inspire you to do anything?

Not to attempt a foreign accent for several weeks afterwards!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Simply Dreadful

This it the first audiobook that I just plain had to stop listening to. From the hour or so that I did manage to sit through it seemed a bit anglo-centric and doted on various English heroes. It definitely did not help that the narrator used a cheesy french accent everytime he spoke quote from frenchmen. It makes them sound stupid and detracts from the overall work. I also found it a bit boring...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful