I would suggest that the spark for mutiny was not excessive but inconsistent punishment. While mutinies were often sparked by specific incidents, they depended on prior planning. Most mutinies were pre-planned and relied on the support of a significant body of men on the lower deck. This floating society, familiar to contemporary observers, was highlighted in Nicholas Rodger’s Wooden World (1986), a work focused on the mid 18 th century navy. The nature of naval service meant the ship was only effective if the sailors consented to be led. The critical outputs that are mutinies stem from the grievances, real or imagined, of the seamen, and a failure of governance by the ship’s captain, officers, and the wider naval administration. Mutiny was a high-risk option: disaffected individuals tended to desert, whereas mutiny required collective action and leadership. They objected to random and unnecessary brutality, incompetent handling of food supplies, and anything else that violated the norms of shipboard life. Pfaff and Hechter stress that life at sea was hard and conditions poor, and the men expected their officers to prevent the situation from getting worse. The resulting statistics underpin ambitious generalizations. The appendices explaining this methodology adopted should be read by all historians anxious to examine complex patterns of behaviour. Cross-referencing these sources reduces the risk that a mutiny had escaped notice. Existing scholarship on mutiny is used to illustrate specific issues, but the core of the work is a Case-Control strategy to sample the wealth of records held at the British National Archives, Logbooks compiled by Captains and Ship’s Masters, Muster Books and Court Martial Records. The authors’ standing in these fields of study commands attention: they have researched and analysed rebellion in many contexts, and rebellion, rather than naval history, is the focus of their work. This book differs in applying survey techniques and theories familiar in the social and political sciences to the great mass of cases and data. The central question is what motivates people to rebel. Hitherto academic research has focused on specific cases, ranging from the small transport Bounty, alone in the South Pacific, to the Grand and North Sea Fleets at Spithead and the Nore in 1797. In the long history of the Royal Navy few issues have excited the same level of interest as mutiny in the age of sail, when seamen challenged the command authority of officers commissioned by the Crown. Reviewed by Andrew Lambert, Department of War Studies, Kings College London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. The Genesis of Rebellion: Governance, Grievance, and Mutiny in the Age of Sail. The Genesis of Rebellion: Governance, Grievance, and Mutiny in the Age of Sail Author(s):