The Pen and The Sword is the history of the U.S. Naval Institute from its founding in 1873 to present, a history marking the Sesquicentennial of the Naval Institute. The work captures the writings and contributions of the young, the unknowns, the famous Flag and General Officers – Navy Marine Corps, Coast Guard, civilian authors and foreign authors works published in the independent forum of the Institute from the late 19th century to the present. The contents of the work’s 17 chapters, richly illustrated, move through the decades, underlining the role the Naval Institute has played and is playing in carrying out the never-partisan “Let Us Dare to Read, Think, Speak, and Write” charter of the founding members.

Eras of rising complexity, challenge, and danger have been part of the history of the United States since the dawning of the Republic. The nation has prepared; it has prevailed; and the Nation’s sea services – Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard—have always played a central role. Throughout cycles of peace, crisis, and war, dedicated Sailors, Marines and Cuttermen have dared to read, think, speak, and write, debating the best course ahead for the Sea Services, examining key defense, national, and global security issues.

The Pen and The Sword is, in the main, prime history, their thinking, their writing, quoted from the pages of Proceedings, the Naval Institute Press, Naval History, oral histories, conferences, and current digital-age contributions.

The Pen and The Sword presents the publishing role the Naval Institute Press, a charter member of the University Presses of America, from professional educational handbooks, to a broad range essays and histories, and, of importance, oral histories – Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard non-fiction, to the publication of fiction beginning with Hunt for the Red October by Tom Clancy.

The book captures the role that seminars, meetings and conferences have increasingly played through the years, culminating in the construction and opening of the Institute’s on-site Jack C. Taylor Conference Center in 2021. Quoting Marine General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Institute Foundation Board of Trustees, on the occasion of the Center’s opening, “Today more than ever, our nations needs a place where professionals in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard can have a discourse on the direction of our naval forces, the direction of our nation, and do so in a non-partisan environment that allows people to speak their minds and learn from others.”