Too Far on a Whim The Limits of High-Steam Propulsion in the US Navy

"In this excellent and most welcome book, Tyler Pitrof thoroughly describes the gamble the U.S. Navy took with high steam. By examining the details of the technology, the Navy's limited understanding of its implications, and the consequent impact it had on World War II operations, Pitrof provides a compelling account of the Navy's decision to employ high steam. His narrative is a necessary correction to the established record which has presented the adoption of high steam in an overwhelmingly positive light. Instead, as Pitrof's detailed research shows, it was a new, largely untested technology with significant unanticipated consequences for operations, force structure, and training."-Trent Hone is Vice President with ICF and an award-winning naval historian. He is author of Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945

"Tyler Pitrof's meticulous scholarship highlights an important aspect of military innovation: the dangers of relying on single source expertise when fielding new technologies like high steam propulsion. This work is a cautionary tale that goes beyond mere history and applicable today, especially in light of the recent Titan maritime disaster in the Atlantic."-John T. Kuehn, Professor of Military History, US Army Command and General Staff College.

"Too Far on a Whim: The Limits of High-Steam Propulsion in the US Navy is ground-breaking work in what is obviously an underserved aspect of U.S. Navy history. . . Pitrof's narrative is well organized, and his writing is crisp and concise. . . It will resonate beyond naval historians to include historians of science and technology, and lay audiences."-Craig Felker is the editor of New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Sixteenth Naval History Symposium, United States Naval Academy. He is the author of Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923-1940 and, with Dr. Martin Loicano, No moment of Victory: The NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan, 2009-2011.