Enjoyable book, Russia comes off as the Laurel and Hardy of the turn of the 19th Century world. The author apparently didn't consult Japanese archives, because he didn't know Japanese, so he has an interesting technique of showing how paranoid the Russians were of the Japanese attacking them all over the world's oceans, without giving us much information on whether the Japanese really were out and about. Similar to most books, a lot of information is given about the honor and fate of various admirals, but not telling us about how many "ordinary" seamen died in the Tsushima battle (4.300 Russians, less than 200 Japanese).

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