Patrick Blackett: Sailor, Scientist, Socialist (review)

Patrick Blackett's career coincided with major changes in the technology and strategy of naval warfare as well as in the wider field of science. He played a significant role in both through his role as a distinguished naval officer and also, as Peter Hore argues, by becoming "one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century" (he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948). Blackett had a major influence on the development of science as well as defence policy in the U.K. and other countries, notably India.

Peter Hore, the editor of this book, views this volume as something of a substitute for the biography that Blackett deserves but he expresses doubts about whether a scholar exists with the range of knowledge required to do Blackett justice. Hore regrets the fact that the "Navy has ignored Blackett" although one wonders whether all the other authors would agree with this judgement.

After a brief first chapter, in Blackett's own words drawn from a typescript of autobiographical reminiscences, the volume moves on to a series of essays by specialist scholars who make wide ranging contributions on the Navy's influence on Blackett and his influence on the "higher realms of military operations and national strategy."

Evan Davies and Geoff Sloan evaluate the Selbourne Scheme ("Blackett was a member of the last class of naval cadets to go though this scheme in its full form" [p. 15]). While Davies emphasises the view that the Selbourne scheme was, in the main, a device to solve a shortage of officers in what was an expanding Royal Navy and that "Jacky" Fisher was not that interested in education per se, Sloan offers a rather more positive evaluation and regards it as a "revolutionary scheme of service education." In any event, Blackett was, so far as Sloan is concerned, "the most distinguished product" of this educational system.

With Peter Hore, we follow Blackett through his early years at sea and his preparations for examinations as well as the development of "his extraordinary genius as an inventor and designer" (p. 64), while John Brooks discusses Blackett's skills in the area of optics and instrument making. Next, we observe Blackett in his scientific studies at Cambridge before he went on to make his important contributions to developing operational research for Coastal Command and the Admiralty during the Second World War and learn how this work was linked to debates over the value of large convoys and area bombing. Towards the end of the volume, there is an evaluation of his impact on India as a military consultant and his role as a "physicist in the corridors of power," including a discussion of his political views and how these affected his attitudes toward international affairs, including the policies of the U.S. towards the Soviet Union. Throughout, Peter Hore and his colleagues provide a fascinating discussion of Blackett's career and his impact on the institutions in which he played such an important role.