Product details
- Publisher : Barnes and Noble; First Edition (1 January 2004)
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0760754993
- ISBN-13 : 978-0760754993
Top reviews from other countries
Classic of sea power Reviewed in the United States on 26 September 2018
Verified PurchaseMahan's work well deserves its reputation as a classic. While his bias towards sea power is evident (and understandable, given that he was writing with an eye to political effect), he lucidly and cogently explains how sea power is underestimated as a critical "tip the balance" force in the wars of the Baroque and Enlightenment era. His arguments about the necessary of maintaining control of the seas are still highly relevant, and his pointed rejoinders to the supporters of the school of commerce-raiding, namely, that commerce raiding will be no more than a nuisance if you maintain control of the seas through a battle fleet, still ring true. This book is also a vivid depiction of strategic thinking in the late 19th century, with its emphasis on markets, coaling stations, lines of communication and so forth. In some ways the work is dated -- Mahan could not foresee the development of aviation, for example, or long range persistent submarines, both of which have obviously forever altered naval warfare -- its core strategic insights (seek out the centre of gravity of the opposing fleet, don't be distracted by secondary objectives, etc, are still valid. The only sections that clearly are of purely historical interests are those where he dwells on tactical ship handling in the age of sail. The lack of diagrams in this Kindle version make following his decriptions of specific battles very difficult (I frankly skimmed them and went straight to the concluding remarks in each chapter). Still very worth reading to the modern naval scholar.
