A. T. Mahan (1840–1914)

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Alfred Thayer Mahan was born on September 27, 1840 at West Point, New York, where his father was a professor of Civil and Military Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1859 and embarked on a nearly 40-year naval career seeing duty in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico against the Confederacy. He taught briefly at Annapolis, but spent most of his academic career at the newly founded Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he eventually served as president. He wrote twenty books during his lifetime including The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783; The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812; The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future; The Life of Nelson; and The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. He died on December 1, 1914.… (mehr)

The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660–1783 is a history of naval warfare published in 1890 by Alfred Thayer Mahan. It details the role of sea power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and discussed the various factors needed to support and achieve sea power, with emphasis on having the largest and most powerful fleet. Scholars considered it the single most influential book in naval strategy. Its policies were quickly adopted by most major navies,[1][2][3][4] ultimately leading to the World War I naval arms race. It is also cited as one of the contributing factors of the United States becoming a great power.… (mehr)

Well sometimes a classic is book that is good to own, but not to read. Innovative as it might have been in it's day, it's more significant on reflection for creating history (arguably being an inspiration for the Japanese, German and US heavy investment in sea power in the early 1900's), than as history. At it's core it's an essentially tedious account of the projection of political power by the British navy in the days of sail and empire, and rather tediously makes a great deal of battle tactics rather than the influence of trade and communication. There is a theme here that is very relevant today - witnessing China's creation of a deep water navy - but this isn't the book that has much (any more) to say about it.… (mehr)