Peter Hore - No Uncertain Sound: the Life and Times of Admiral Sir Jock Slater

Admiral Sir Jock Slater was an outstanding First Sea Lord, by far the best holder of the post in the past 25 years and should have been Chief of Defence Staff.

Using a range of personal, unofficial, and private sources, Peter Hore shares a vivid account of Jock Slater's life which blossoms further into a synthesis of British naval and defence policy at the end of the Cold War.

It is seldom possible for the historian to explore deeply the human interactions that are the vital essence of defence leadership.

As time passes, official documents and long-prepared, carefully edited, autobiographies or personal papers dominate surviving evidence.

Peter's book, No Uncetain Sound mines a much richer veins of memory, opinion and perspective to provide fascinating insights into the professional life and times of Jock Slater.

Slater's professional development is full of examples of institutional, combined and joint command leadership.

It is a wide-ranging story, giving plenty of food for thought, as well as being an excellent read.

The book addresses a wide range of contemporary questions, nuclear policy, the integration of women at sea, the end of the ban on gay service members, the future of the Royal Marines, and development of British Maritime Doctrine, and is as much a study of leadership during periods of change as it is a biography of an admiral.

This is a masterly slice of contemporary naval history.