Alfred Thayer Mahan

(click to enlarge)
Alfred Thayer Mahan, 1897 (credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Sept. 27, 1840, West Point, N.Y., U.S. — died Dec. 1, 1914, Quogue, N.Y.) U.S. naval officer and historian. He studied at the U.S. Naval Academy, and his nearly 40 years of active naval duty included fighting in the American Civil War. He was president of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. (1886 – 89). His classic analysis The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660 – 1783 (1890) argued that sea power was decisive in determining national supremacy. In The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793 – 1812 (1892), he stressed the interdependence of military and commercial control of the sea. Avidly read in Britain and Germany, both books greatly influenced the buildup of naval forces before World War I.

For more information on Alfred Thayer Mahan, visit Britannica.com.

Born to Mary Okill and Dennis Hart Mahan, the latter a professor of civil and military engineering at West Point, Mahan became a career naval officer. He also became a historian and strategic analyst upon his appointment to the new Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1885. Over the following quarter century, he wrote some of the most influential works on history and strategy ever produced.

Mahan's studies range widely, incorporating innovative and resourceful historical research and analysis with the perceived strategic and political needs of his day. Though his writings were long ago distilled into dogma from which U.S. naval doctrine has frequently been derived, Mahan himself aimed for accuracy and insight as much as for political or strategic influence. In fact, by the 1906 all‐big‐gun battleship controversies, Mahan had already been outpaced by enthusiasts willing to go even further in defense of these behemoths of concentrated fire.

Much of Mahan's forty‐year naval career passed with barely a hint of his future influence. Prickly young Mahan completed two years at Columbia College before entering the U.S. Naval Academy's Class of 1859. His Civil War service was limited to blockade duty except for a few hours of combat during the assault on Port Royal. In successive postwar assignments, he rose slowly through the ranks without distinction. Most of his cruises were on the remote Pacific or Asiatic Squadrons, reinforcing his alienated nature and encouraging his chauvinistic views toward the peoples of the Pacific Basin. His High Church Episcopal beliefs aggravated the disdain he felt for most people—naval officers, sailors, and foreigners alike.

Mahan's most famous and important work—The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783—first published in 1890, suggests the main thrust of his historical efforts. From 1885 to 1893 he was assigned to the Naval War College, briefly as a professor and soon as president of the fledgling institution. In the years before his retirement in 1896, he prepared his most influential studies. Originally, these were designed for his midlevel officer students. They quickly lost their heuristic value, becoming instead primers of international relations, force, and diplomacy. Over the course of a long second career, Mahan produced twenty‐one books, including eleven collections of essays, two naval biographies, two memoirs, and the famous Influence series that examined international history from 1660 to 1815. His histories emphasized the persistent nature of international conflict, particularly between great powers competing for access to trade and resources. His religion, research, and theorizing, as well as his experiences at the First Hague Conference for limiting warfare (1899), led him to believe that diplomacy was best engaged in after successful conclusion of the battle. For Mahan, international relations hinged on power projection. In the modern era, this was best exercised by navies.

Mahan identified three critical elements of seapower: (1) weapons of war, primarily battleships and their supply bases; (2) a near monopoly of seaborne commerce from which to draw wealth, manpower, and supplies; and (3) a string of colonies to support both of the above. His theories, however, rested on two serious fallacies. First, his overreliance upon the notion of concentrating forces falsely denied the importance of coastal defense, and undervalued commerce raiding. These assumptions forced strategists to search for a decisive, war‐winning battle, often in vain. Second, he overstated the strategic benefits of controlling seaborne commerce and colonies. Whereas in peacetime these components of empire frequently contributed to wealth and consequently to long‐term strength, in war they often proved to be liabilities. Mahan's timeless principles, as enacted along the lines of late‐nineteenth‐century navalism, had the effect of turning America's strategic vision of itself on its side; instead of remaining an unassailable continental power with maritime reach, it became an overstretched maritime power with global vulnerabilities.

From 1896 until his death, Mahan lived in New York City and at Quogue on Long Island with his wife and unmarried daughters. Though the value of his writings continues to be debated, of their influence on the navies of the United States and other countries there can be no doubt.

[See also Doctrine, Military; Sea Warfare; Strategy: Naval Warfare Strategy; Tactics: Naval Warfare Tactics.]

Bibliography

• Robert Seager II and Doris Maguire, The Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, 3 vols., 1975.
• Robert Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters, 1977.
• John B. Hattendorf and Lynn C. Hattendorf, A Bibliography of the Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, 1986.
• Kenneth J. Hagan, This People's Navy, 1991.
• Mark Russell Shulman, Navalism and the Emergence of American Sea Power, 1882–1893, 1995

Mahan, Alfred Thayer mǝˈhæn (1840-1914) naval officer, author, and world-renowned theorist on history and strategy, born at West Point, New York. His The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (1890), as well as a two-volume sequel that dealt with the years 1793 to 1812, became a primer on international relations, the use of force, and the role of diplomacy, which Mahan believed should follow, not precede, battle. International relations, he argued, hinged on power projection, which was best exercised by gaining control of the seas. Though his theories and arguments have since been seen as flawed, there is little question about his significance as a naval historian and theoretician in the latter part of the 19th century. Mahan's early career was undistinguished. He saw only a few hours of combat during the Civil War and rose slowly through the ranks afterward. The change began with his appointment to the Naval War College (1885) to teach naval history and the subsequent publication of the first Influence book, a collection of his lecture notes. He resigned from the navy in 1895 to pursue his writing career full time. In all, Mahan published twenty-one books, as well as numerous magazine articles and letters to the editor.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), American naval historian and strategist, provided the intellectual and historical foundations for American imperial expansion.

Alfred Thayer Mahan was born on Sept. 27, 1840. His father was an officer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a professor of civil and military engineering. Young Mahan evidently intended a military career from the beginning. After 2 years at Columbia College he entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1856, graduating second in his class in 1859.

During the Civil War, Mahan spent most of his time on blockade duty and in the years after the war received a variety of assignments. He became increasingly interested in writing and in 1883 published his first book, The Gulf and Inland Waters, part of the naval history of the Civil War.

Almost immediately thereafter occurred what was probably the decisive event of Mahan's life. He was invited in 1884 to lecture on naval tactics and history at the newly established Naval War College. In outlining his lectures he first formulated the ideas that became the basis of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (1890). Up to this point in his life, Mahan had believed that the United States should avoid international involvement and concentrate solely on defense. But his study of the influence of sea power changed his views, and he came to the conclusion that strong naval power was essential to maintain national strength. His book attracted favorable attention and established him as an important military thinker. His other major work was The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 (2 vols., 1892).

Mahan retired in 1896, but during the Spanish-American War he was called to serve on the Naval War Board, an informal advisory body to the secretary of the Navy. After the war he was one of the American representatives to the Hague Disarmament Conference.

Mahan's major influence came from his association with such politicians as John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt, all of whom were committed to American imperial expansion. In his writings Mahan argued that expansion was a military necessity for the United States. It was largely on the basis of Mahan's ideas, for instance, that President Theodore Roosevelt took steps to acquire the Panama Canal for the United States.

In 1912 Mahan accepted a position at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. He died on Dec. 1, 1914.

Further Reading

Mahan's autobiography, From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (1907), is essential. The basic biography of Mahan is William D. Puleston, Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan (1939). The author, however, is a Navy captain, and his exclusively naval viewpoint should be supplemented with William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (1947), which contains the essential biographical information while placing Mahan's ideas more correctly in the context of the times.

Additional Sources

Mahan, A. T. (Alfred Thayer), Letters and papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975.

Seager, Robert, Alfred Thayer Mahan: the man and his letters, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1977.

Turk, Richard W., The ambiguous relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan, New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.

(1840-1914), naval strategist and historian. At a time when he was drifting "aimlessly" as a forty-five-year-old naval officer, Mahan recalled, his life was transformed in a Lima, Peru, library; he interpreted Theodor Mommsen's history of Rome to mean that the Roman Empire had been shaped by its control of the sea. Invited to the new U.S. Naval War College to lecture (because of a bland history he wrote on Civil War naval battles), Mahan developed his interpretation into The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (1890), which became the single most influential book on strategy and foreign policy in his time. He argued that naval power resulted from geographical position, excess production, proper national character, and a supportive government. Enjoying all these characteristics, Americans, "whether they will or no, ... must now begin to look outward," he wrote. "The growing production of the country demands it. An increasing volume of public sentiment demands it."

He strongly influenced key U.S. officials, especially Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt (a close friend), to follow the policies dictated by his insight: continual expansion overseas; the taking of Caribbean islands, Hawaii, the Philippines, and other Pacific territory for bases the navy needed to protect commerce; building an isthmian canal so the fleet and freighters could quickly move ocean to ocean; and, of course, constructing the great navy. The fleet, he preached, must be built around giant battleships that could score decisive victories, not small hit-and-run cruisers on which U.S. naval tactics had long depended. A navy that had ninety small ships (thirty-eight wooden) in 1882 became in the 1890s the Great White Fleet of steam-driven, armor-plated battleships that won the war of 1898 and fought in World War I.

Mahan's history and strategy, spelled out in half a dozen major books after 1890, had other far-reaching implications. Such an expansive policy required a powerful president. Mahan worried that the Constitution's restraints were "a lion in the path" of expansion, and he urged that those limits on presidential power be ignored. Believing that the world was dividing between naval powers (the United States, Great Britain, and Japan) and land powers (especially Russia), he urged the former to unite and defeat the latter, especially in Asia. He was even more admired in Great Britain, Japan, and Germany than in the United States. But when Japan dominated East Asia after defeating Russia in 1905, the Japanese discriminated against U.S. interests. Mahan could only urge Americans to pull back to Hawaii. That was an especially bitter decision, because as a hardened conservative he wanted overseas expansion, not "socialist" redistribution measures (which he hated) to solve the problem of excess U.S. production.

Finally, Mahan believed that modern arms were to prevent war, not wage it: "war now not only occurs more rarely ... [but is] an occasional excess, from which recovery is easy." British historian Charles Webster observed that "Mahan was one of the causes of the First World War." Mahan helped spark a fatal British-German naval race, believing that great bloodshed would never occur. He died just as that bloodshed began.

Bibliography:

William E. Livezey, Mahan on Seapower (1980); Robert Seager III, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (1977).

Author:

Walter LaFeber

See also Armed Forces; Expansion, Continental and Overseas.

Alfred Thayer Mahan
September 27, 1840(1840-09-27) – December 1, 1914 (aged 74)
Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan
Place of birth	West Point, New York
Allegiance	United States of America Union
Service/branch	Union Navy
Rank	Captain Rear Admiral (post retirement)
Commands held	USS Chicago
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Alfred Thayer Mahan (September 27, 1840 – December 1, 1914) was a United States Navy flag officer, geostrategist, and educator. His ideas on the importance of sea power influenced navies around the world, and helped prompt naval buildups before World War I. Several ships were named USS Mahan, including the lead vessel of a class of destroyers. His research into naval history led to his most important work, The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660-1783, published in 1890.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Naval War College and writings 3 Strategic views and influence 4 Later career 5 Honors 6 Works 7 Further reading 8 Notes 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Early life

Born at West Point, New York, to Dennis Hart Mahan (a professor at the United States Military Academy) and Mary Helena Mahan, he attended Saint James School, an Episcopal college preparatory academy in western Maryland. He then studied at Columbia for two years where he was a member of the Philolexian Society debating club and then, against his parents' wishes, transferred to the Naval Academy, where he graduated second in his class in 1859.

Commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1861, Mahan served the Union in the American Civil War as an officer on Congress, Pocahontas, and James Adger, and as an instructor at the Naval Academy. In 1865 he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, and then to Commander (1872), and Captain (1885). As commander of the U.S.S. Wachusett was stationed at Callao, Peru, protecting American interests during the final stages of the War of the Pacific.^[1][2].

Alfred T. Mahan as a Captain

Despite his professed success in the Navy, his skills in actual command of a ship were not exemplary, and a number of vessels under his command were involved in collisions, with both moving and stationary objects. He had an affection for old square-rigged vessels, and did not like smoky, noisy steamships of his time; he tried to avoid active sea duty.^[3] On the other hand, the books he wrote ashore made him arguably the most influential naval historian of the period. In pointing out how unlikely his ascent was Kyle Whitney compared his chances of achieving prominence in the navy to that of "a cheerleader becoming president".^[4]

Naval War College and writings

In 1885, he was appointed lecturer in naval history and tactics at the Naval War College. Before entering on his duties, College President Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce pointed Mahan in the direction of writing his future studies on the influence of sea power. For his first year on the faculty, he remained at his home in New York City researching and writing his lectures. Upon completion of this research period, he was to succeed Luce as President of the Naval War College from June 22, 1886 to January 12, 1889 and again from July 22, 1892 to May 10, 1893.^[5] There, in 1887, he met and befriended a young visiting lecturer named Theodore Roosevelt, who would later become president of the United States. During this period Mahan organized his Naval War College lectures into his most influential books, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, and The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812, published 1890 and 1892, respectively.

Upon being published, Mahan struck up a friendship with pioneering British naval historian Sir John Knox Laughton, the pair maintaining this relationship through correspondence and visits when Mahan was in London. Mahan was later described as a 'disciple' of Laughton, although the two men were always at pains to distinguish between each other's line of work, Laughton seeing Mahan as a theorist while Mahan called Laughton 'the historian'.^[6]

Strategic views and influence

Mahan's views were shaped by the eighteenth century naval wars between France and Britain, where British naval superiority eventually defeated France, consistently preventing invasion and blockade, (see Napoleonic war: Battle of Trafalgar and Continental System). To a modern reader, the emphasis on controlling seaborne commerce is a commonplace, but, in the nineteenth century, the notion was radical, especially in a nation entirely obsessed with expansion on to the continent's western land. On the other hand, Mahan's emphasising sea power, as the crucial fact behind Britain's ascension, neglected the well-documented roles of diplomacy and armies; Mahan's theories could not explain the success of terrestrial empires, such as Bismarckian Germany.^[7] However, as the Royal Navy's blockade of the German Empire was a critical direct and indirect factor in the eventual German collapse, Mahan's theories were vindicated by the First World War.

Ideologically, the United States Navy initially opposed replacing its sailing ships with steam-powered ships after the Civil War, however, Mahan argued that only a fleet of armoured battleships might be decisive in a modern war. According to the decisive-battle doctrine, a fleet must not be divided; Mahan's work encouraged technological improvement in convincing opponents that naval knowledge and strategy remained necessary, but that domination of the seas dictated the necessity of the speed and predictability of the steam engine.

His books were greatly acclaimed, and closely studied in Britain and Imperial Germany, influencing their forces build up before World War I. Mahan influenced the naval portion of the Spanish-American War, and the battles of Tsushima, Jutland, and the Atlantic. His work influenced the doctrines of every major navy in the interwar period; The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660-1783 was translated to Japanese^[8] and used as a textbook in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). This strongly affected the IJN's Pacific War conduct, emphasising the "decisive battle" doctrine — even at the expense of protecting trade.

The IJN's pursuit of the "decisive battle" was such that it contributed to Imperial Japan's defeat in 1945,^[9][10] and so rendered obsolete the doctrine of the decisive battle between fleets, because of the development of the submarine and the aircraft carrier.^[11] However, one could argue that the IJN did not adhere entirely to Mahan's doctrine, as they did divide their main force from time to time, and such sealed their own defeat.

Nevertheless, Mahan's concept of sea power extended beyond naval superiority; that in peace time, states should increase production and shipping capacities, acquire overseas possessions — either colonies or privileged access to foreign markets^[12] — yet stressed that the number of coal fuel stations and strategic bases should be few, not to drain too many resources from the mother country.^[13]

Later career

Between 1889 and 1892 Mahan was engaged in special service for the Bureau of Navigation, and in 1893 he was appointed to command the powerful new protected cruiser Chicago on a visit to Europe, where he was received and feted. He returned to lecture at the War College and then, in 1896, he retired from active service, returning briefly to duty in 1898 to consult on naval strategy for the Spanish-American War.

Mahan continued to write voluminously and received honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, and McGill.

In 1902 Mahan invented the term "Middle East", which he used in the article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations", published in September in the National Review.^[14]

He became Rear Admiral in 1906 by an act of Congress promoting all retired captains who had served in the Civil War. At the outbreak of World War I, he initially engaged in the cause of Great Britain, but an order of President Woodrow Wilson prohibited all active and retired officers from publishing comments on the war. Mahan died of heart failure on December 1, 1914.

Honors

Mahan Hall at the United States Naval Academy, named after Admiral Mahan.

• The United States Naval Academy's Mahan Hall was named in his honor.^[15]
• A.T. Mahan Elementary School and A.T. Mahan High School at Keflavik Naval Air Station in Iceland, were also named in his honor.
• Naval Sea Cadet Corps unit in Albany, New York is honored with his name as the Mahan Division also named after the USS Mahan

Works

• The Gulf and Inland Waters (1883)
• The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (1890)
• The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 (1892)
• Admiral Farragut (1892)
• The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (1897)
• The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (1897)
• Lessons of the War with Spain, and Other Articles (1899)
• The Problem of Asia and Its Effect Upon International Policies (1900)
• Story of the War in South Africa 1899-1900 (1900)
• Types of Naval Officers Drawn from the History of the British Navy (1901)
• Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812 (1905)
• From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval life (1907)
• Naval Administration and Warfare: Some General Principles, with Other Essays (1908)
• The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of the Christian (1909)
• Naval Strategy: Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land (1911)
• Armaments and Arbitration; or, The Place of Force in the International Relations of States (1912)
• The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence (1913)
• The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1805 (abridged ed, 1980)
• DDG-72 USS Mahan

Further reading

• The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (1890)
• The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (1897)
  • The Life of Nelson, Volume 1 (of 2) by A. T. Mahan at Project Gutenberg
  • The Life of Nelson, Volume 2 (of 2) by A. T. Mahan at Project Gutenberg
• The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (1897)
• Story of the War in South Africa 1899-1900 (1900)
• Types of Naval Officers Drawn from the History of the British Navy (1901)
• The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of the Christian (1909)
• The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence (1913)

Notes

1. ^ See "The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan" by Richard W. Turk; Greenwood Press, 1987. 183 pgs. page 10
2. ^ See Larrie D. Ferreiro 'Mahan and the "English Club” of Lima, Peru: The Genesis of The Influence of Sea Power upon History', The Journal of Military History - Volume 72, Number 3, July 2008, pp. 901-906
3. ^ Paret, Peter (1986). Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 445. 
4. ^ Seager, Robert (1977). Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and his Letters". Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. pp. 360. 
5. ^ http://www.nwc.navy.mil/l1/Past%20Presidents%20of%20College.htm
6. ^ Knight, Roger (2000) The Foundations of Naval History: John Knox Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession, Review of book by Professor Andrew Lambert in the Institute for Historical Research's Reviews in History series. (London: Institute for Historical Research) http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/knight.html - URL last accessed April 3, 2007
7. ^ Paret, Peter (1986). Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 453-455. 
8. ^ Mark Peattie & David Evans, Kaigun (U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1997)
9. ^ Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon, The Pearl Harbor Papers (Brassey's, 1993)
10. ^ Marc Parillo, The Japanese Merchant Marine in WW2 (U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1993)
11. ^ Paret, Peter (1986). Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 475-477. 
12. ^ Paret, Peter (1986). Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 451. 
13. ^ Paret, Peter (1986). Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 460. 
14. ^ Adelson, Roger. London and the Invention of the Middle East: Money, Power, and War, 1902-1922. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-300-06094-7 p. 22-23
15. ^ Ebarb, Matthew A. "Midshipmen Learn Lessons from the Fleet" (story number NNS071020-04), Navy.mil, October 20, 2007.

See also

United States Navy portal

• Choke point, with regard to naval tactics
• Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher
• War Plan Orange

References

• Charles Carlisle Taylor, The Life of Admiral Mahan, 1920, London.
• William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, reprinted 1981)
• W. D. Puleston, Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939)
• Robert Seager, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977)
• John B. Hattendorf and Lynn C. Hattendorf, comps. Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan (1986)
• Philip A. Crowl, "Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian" in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)
• Eugene L. Rasor, English/British Naval History to 1815. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004, pp. 43–44.
• John B. Hattendorf, Mahan on Naval Strategy: selections from the writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1991)
• Benjamin Apt, "Mahan's Forebears: The Debate over Maritime Strategy, 1868-1883." Naval War College Review (Summer 1997). Online. Naval War College. September 24, 2004
• Mark R. Shulman, Navalism and the Emergence of American Sea Powers, 1882-1893 (1995)
• Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing grand strategy and teaching command: the classic works of Alfred Thayer Mahan reconsidered (1997)
• Biographical article
• Works by Alfred Thayer Mahan at Project Gutenberg
• The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan by Richard W.Turk, Greenwood Press, NY. 1987. Contributions in Military Studies, number 63. ISBN 0313256446. 183 pages.

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Alfred Thayer Mahan

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alfred Thayer Mahan

• Past Presidents of the Naval War College - from the Naval War College website
• Alfred Thayer Mahan at Find a Grave

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Persondata
NAME	Mahan, Alfred Thayer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	United States Navy admiral and historian
DATE OF BIRTH	September 27, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH	West Point, New York
DATE OF DEATH	December 1, 1914
PLACE OF DEATH

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