This new collection of scholarly, readable, and up-to-date essays covers the most significant naval blockades of the 19th and 20th centuries. This includes Napoleon's Continental Blockade of England, the Anglo-American War of 1812, the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the first Sino-Japanese War 1894-95, the Spanish-American War, World War I, the second Sino-Japanese War 1937-45, World War II in Europe and Asia, the Nationalist attempt to blockade the PRC, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the British blockade of Rhodesia, the Falklands War, the Persian Gulf interdiction program, the PRC "missile" blockade of Taiwan in 1996, and finally Australia's recent "reverse" blockade to keep illegal aliens out of the country. The authors of each chapter address the causes of the blockade in question, its long and short-term repercussions, and the course of the blockade itself. More generally, they address the state of the literature, taking advantage of new research and new methodologies to provide something of value to both the specialist and non-specialist reader.
Taken as a whole, this volume presents fresh insights into issues such as what a blockade is, why countries might chose them, which navies can and cannot make use of them, what responses lead to satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusions, and how far-reaching their consequences tend to be. This is book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of strategic studies, military history and maritime studies in particular.