The New York herald., 1921-01-30
BOOK REVIEWS
Biography Explains Growing Fame Of
the Greatest Authority on Sea Power

of atmosphere and story little of which ap-
pears in Mr.. Taylor's pages. In fact. if this
Life" of Admiral Mahan has any one defect
it lies in this; That it fails to show. as is so
clearly demonstrated in Mahan's autobiog-
raphy, how profoundly he loved the sea,
ships and the men who were associated with
him in guiding the one over the other.
Again, this is only natural to an English
man, since it was Mahan, the writer on
naval topics, who first burst on the English
world as the greatest expositor of her
world dominance in sea power
In a sense Admiral Mahan's life was
narrow one, for from the time he was gradu-
ated from the United States Naval Academy
in 1859 until he retired from the Navy in
1895, after forty years service his life was
that Of naval officer. pure and simple. He
born at West Point on September 27.
1S40 son of Prof. Dennis Hart Mahan of the
United States Military Academy. Prot.
Mahan was graduate of the Military Acad-
emy and in later life distinguished pro-
fessor of engineering at that institution. In
From Sail to Steam" (the passage is quoted
by Mr.. Taylor) Admiral Mahan tells of his
choice of a career: my entrance into the
navy was greatly against my fathers wish.
I do not remember his arguments, but he
tcld me he thought me much less fit for
military than for civil profession, having
watched me carefully / think myself now
l.
to complain of unsuccess believe should
have done better elsewhere" Nothing could
more clearly illustrate Mahan's habit of
mind toward study than his entrance into
the Naval Academy in 1885, after having
spent the two previous years as student
at Columbia University. He had a morbid
fondness for time tables and registers as
he said, and this habit led him to the dis
covery that he could enter the Naval Acad-
emy in any class for which he could pass
the examinations. This enabled him to
graduate in 1859 instead OF a year later, as
would have been the ordinary course. He
was second In his class one of the surviving
twenty of the original forty-nine. He went
to sea Immediately: and of his adventures
on the Brazil station" in the old frigate
Congress his autobiography tells many de-
lightful and amusing tales which his present
biographer had not space nor inclination
to repeat.
Young Mahan Served as Midshipman
in the Civil War Blockade Period
Then came the civil war and the deadly
dull monotony of blockading duty. of which
Mahan had his full share. Mr.. Taylor tells,
for the first time here, that while Mahan
was on this service, as q midshipman on
board the blockading steamer James Adger,
he wrote a letter to the then Assistant Sec
retary of the Navy suggesting a plan for
the capture and destruction or the COnfed-
crate raider Sumter that was identical with
the plan followed by the British Navy fifty
five years later with its mystery ships"
His war experiences Mahan turned to good
literary use, for they served as the basis Of
his first book The Gulf and Inland Wa
ters," published in 1888. That was the only
break in the routine of naval officers life
until 1885, when he was assigned to the
Naval War College, first institution of its
kind In the world, as a lecturer on naval
history and strategy. This institutions
being was chiefly due to the original genius
of Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce and it
must have been in the preceding year that
Luce wrote to Mnhan. then in command Of
the Wachusett of the South Pacific squad
ron, inviting Mahan to become a lecturer
on naval history and strategy Admiral
Fiske recently made the statement that
Mahan was not naval strategist, but a
naval historian. a singular commentary in
view of the fact that he was the first off,
GER selected to lecture naval strategy at
the War College; that he was selected for
that post by the most brilliant officer of the
American Navy of the time, and In the light
of Mahan's subsequent recognition as an
authority on naval strategy.
Taylor devotes only a little more than
two pages to this event In Mahan's life.