By his own choice, he retired from the navy in 1896 to pursue his literary career. He also wrote biographies and biographical sketches, as well as several interpretative articles upon events of his time.Ī large number of his professional colleagues in the United States Navy did not recognize the importance of the task Mahan had set for himself. There followed in 1892 The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire: 1793–1812 and in 1905 Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812. From his lectures came the basis for his most important work, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660–1783, which appeared in 1890. It was not his intention to do original research but rather to use the best historical works available to investigate his chosen field. His duties at the war college forced him to crystallize his thoughts on sea power and history. He probably received the assignment because he wrote “The Gulf and Inland Waters,” a competent volume appearing in 1883 as a part of a larger history of the American Civil War. Mahan was selected in 1885 to lecture on naval strategy, tactics, and history at the newly established Naval War College. There was little indication during these years of the intellectual importance he was to attain. At its conclusion, he continued his navy career and traveled widely. Mahan chose the navy for his profession and, graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 1859, saw active service in the American Civil War. Mahan was born at West Point, New York, where his father was a professor of military engineering at the United States Military Academy. As a historian he studied the relations of sea power and history, and he developed a philosophy of history in which the concept of force played a major role. From his studies of naval warfare he drew principles of strategy that greatly influenced the development and employment of naval forces during the first half of the twentieth century. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) was an American naval officer who wrote extensively on naval strategy and the history of sea power.
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