Recap: Cocktails & Conversation with Professor Paul Kennedy

Our Guest Speaker & Cocktail Reception

Professor Paul Kennedy on “Winning World War II at Sea”

Friday, February 3, 2023

Location: Country Club of Florida, Village of Golf, FL

Paul Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, Director of International Security Studies at Yale, and Distinguished Fellow of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, coordinates the ISS programs funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation. He is internationally known for his writings and commentaries on global political, economic, and strategic issues.

In this talk, Paul Kennedy, one of Yale’s best-known teachers — widely acclaimed for his groundbreaking 1989 best-seller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers — discussed his newest book, Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II. Professor Kennedy explained to us the role that sea power played in the greatest conflict the world has ever seen, and how America’s first “two-ocean war” was fought across the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean by fighting warships large and small. He showed us what the British and U.S. navies were up against, and why, despite their vaunted legacies, it was not until 1943 that the Allies started to gain the upper hand.