![]() This book, in the words of its author, is “the portrait-warts and all-of a historian, strategist, tactician, philosopher, Episcopalian, theologian, diplomat, imperialist, mercantilist, capitalist, Anglophile, patriot, Republican, racist, Social Darwinist, journalist, polemicist, naval reformer, adviser to presidents and legislators, teacher, academic administrator, social climber, egoist, introvert, swain, husband, and father. ![]() His daughter remembered this aloof, complicated, and contentious man as “The Cat That Walked By Himself.” America remembers him as its “Philosopher of Sea Power,” the prescient genius who pulled the nation and the Navy with him as he strode into the twentieth century. Thanks to family papers made available to the author by the admiral’s grandson, it also contains an intimate portrait of Mahan the swain, husband, and father, together with revealing insights into his personality, character, religious beliefs, professional frustrations, social aspirations, and financial difficulties. This biography goes far beyond a consideration of Mahan as the world-famous historian, diplomatist, and strategist. In 1906 he was promoted to rear admiral on the Retired List. He fought in the Civil War and served in various peacetime billets ashore and afloat until 1896, when he retired in the rank of captain. Naval Academy and in 1859 graduated second in his class. Military Academy, was the Army’s premier authority on field fortifications and infantry tactics. His father, Dennis Hart Mahan, Professor of Engineering at the U.S. ![]() This brilliant, instantly acclaimed volume was in many ways the most influential book written by an American in the nineteenth century.Īlfred Thayer Mahan was born in 1840 at West Point, New York. 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. Indeed, in the words of the author of this biography, Mahan had “much to do with resurrecting the U.S. Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan died on December 1, 1914, in Quogue, New York.Synopsis: President Theodore Roosevelt called him “one of the greatest and most useful influences in American life.” He was. Mahan’s works on naval history and strategies greatly influenced the buildup of naval forces among the major world powers in the years prior to World War I. The lectures Mahan gave at the college became the basis for the Influence of sea power upon history, 1660-1783, published in 1890, the first of twenty books and twenty-three essays written by Mahan on this broad subject. Mahan was later appointed president of the Naval War College in June 1886 to January 1889 and again from July 1892 to May 1893. In October 1885, Mahan was invited by Stephen Luce (1827-1917), president of the newly established Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, to serve as a lecturer on naval history and tactics. Thayer was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral on June 29, 1906, by an act of Congress which promoted all retired captains who had served during the Civil War. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant while fighting in the American Civil War (1861-1865), was named Captain in 1885, and retired from active service in November 1896. Mahan graduated second from his class at the United States Naval Academy in 1859 and went on to serve nearly forty years of active duty in the United States Navy. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), American naval officer and historian, was born on September 27, 1840, in West Point, New York, to Dennis Hart (1802-1871), a United States Military Academy professor, and Mary Helen (Okill) Mahan.
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