ALFRED THAYER MAHAN Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

ALFRED THAYER MAHAN - Essay Example 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). Despite his success in the Navy, his skills in commanding a ship was not exemplary, and a number of vessels under his command were involved in collisions, with both moving and stationary objects. With strong affection for old square-rigged vessels, he did not like smoky, noisy steamships of his times and he tried to avoid active sea duty. On the other hand, the books he wrote ashore made him arguably the most influential naval historian. In 1885, he was appointed lecturer in naval history and tactics and the Naval War College. It was here he began researching and writing his lectures. He later became the president of the Naval War College and sometime in 1887, he became acquainted with a young visiting lecturer named Theodore Roosevelt, who would later become the 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 in 1890 and 1892, respectively. Some of his other noteworthy works include Life of Farragut (1892), The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (2 vols., 1897), Sea Power in its Relation to the War of 1812 (1905), and From Sail to Steam (1907), the last a book relating to his own career. In his later years he also wrote many articles for the magazine s, and out of them were formed several volumes of essays. Mahan believed that control of seaborne commerce was the determining factor to domination in war. It emphasized that if one combatant could deny the use of the sea to the other party, then the economy of the other side would