Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters

President Theodore Roosevelt called him “one of the greatest and most useful influences in American life.” In the words of Robert Seager II, Mahan had “much to do with resurrecting the U.S. Navy from its post-Civil War grave, and with giving it the professional ballast and theoretical direction that helped guide it to victory in 1898, in 1918, and in 1945.” By many Americans he is recalled chiefly as the author of The Influence of Sea Power upon History. That brilliant, instantly acclaimed ...