12/30/2023 0 Comments Alfred thayer mahan biographyThanks 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. Prominent alums of "Philo" include Hamilton Fish, Joyce Kilmer, and Thomas Merton.Ĭolumbia's history, as seen by those who have studied, taught, and worked here.Ĭolumbians have changed the world and how we see it.Synopsis: President Theodore Roosevelt called him “one of the greatest and most useful influences in American life.” He was. Theodore Roosevelt befriended Mahan and subscribed to his theories. Read more about Alfred Thayer Mahan in the Columbia Encyclopedia Although Mahan saw military might as a means for avoiding war, the global growth inspired by his theories very clearly set the stage for World War I. Mahan’s work influenced strategists in other countries as well, leading to naval buildups in England, Germany, and Japan in particular. ships could refuel and protect commerce and even the construction of the Panama Canal, which facilitated the movement of fleets and freight. Navy, which replaced small cruisers with massive battleships and underwent a concomitant change in tactics continued expansion overseas (to the Philippines, Hawaii and other Pacific islands, and the Caribbean), which allowed the creation bases at which U.S. In the United States, Mahan’s theories found a particularly receptive audience in Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt: His work bolstered the case for rapid expansion and reconfiguration of the U.S. It was there, inspired in part by a history of Rome, that he began developing his theories in 1890 he turned his lecture notes into The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783.Īppearing at a time when Japan and the nations of Europe were engaged in a fiercely competitive arms race, Mahan’s work had a singularly profound influence on politics worldwide. A longtime naval officer who cut his teeth on the Union side in the Civil War, Mahan eventually lectured on history and strategy at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Mahan studied at Columbia for two years beginning in 1854-he was a member of the Philolexian Society, the campus literary club established in 1802-before decamping for Annapolis, from which he graduated in 1859. an occasional excess, from which recovery is easy."īy arguing that sea power-the strength of a nation’s navy-was the key to strong foreign policy, Alfred Thayer Mahan shaped American military planning and helped prompt a worldwide naval race in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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