Mahan, Alfred Thayer

Person

Mahan, Alfred Thayer

1840-1914

Alfred Thayer Mahan was an American naval officer and historian who was a highly influential exponent of sea power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mahan was the son of a professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., in 1859 and went on to serve nearly 40 years of active duty in the U.S. Navy.

A Union naval officer in the Civil War, he later lectured on naval history and strategy at the Naval War College, Newport, R.I., of which he was president (1886–89, 1892–93). Out of his lectures grew his two major works on the historical significance of sea power—The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890) and The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (2 vol., 1892). His books were quickly translated into several languages and were widely read by political leaders, especially in Germany, where they were used as a justification for a naval buildup. In the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and other proponents of a big navy and overseas expansion were much influenced by Mahan’s writings. Among his many works are biographies of David Farragut and Horatio Nelson and the autobiographical From Sail to Steam (1907, repr. 1968).

Draft

• English