'This is the story of a happy boat, or so it seems to me...' A fascinating story of a charming boat, Something About Navigator explores the development, building and sailing of one of John Welsford's most loved designs. The Navigator has become an incredibly popular boat, with over 600 plan sets sold at last count. Robert Ditterich uses a narrative style to pin down the charm at the root of this popularity, while also extensively illustrating the processes involved in building one, fitting it out and using it. The Navigator 'in the wild' is represented by illustrated essays from experienced Navigator sailors and builders. The romance of small open boat sailing, and the freedom felt, even just in dreaming about one, will make this book appealing to owners or aspiring owner/builders of many wooden boats available to-day.

Before Pearl Harbor: Making the Pacific War by Robert Ditterich traces the subtle and peculiarly Japanese underpinnings of the war in the Pacific and challenges the "good war" tenets so prevalent in today's historical analysis. Through scrupulous research and traditional narrative, Ditterich's impeccable examination probes Western interpretations of the causes the war and offers a complex mix of cultural, historical, and geopolitical factors for the war that other viewpoints have missed. Ditterich masterfully negotiates the multifaceted chains of cause and effect that led to war in Asia, tracking Japan's development as an industrial power and the Western impulses that played a major role in the creation of a militarist Japan. Told with a breadth of understanding rare in historical nonfiction, Before Pearl Harbor: Making the Pacific War challenges old assumptions and offers new insights into our not so distant past.