Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered (Woodrow Wilson Center Press)
The book is one of the most important on Mahan and the nature of naval command and should be studied wherever naval command is studied.(Lloyd's List)Sumida casts new light on one of the most important strategic writers of this century.(Journal of Military History)Jon Sumida's masterful explication of Mahan's thought stands out for its superb analysis, clarity and elegance of prose, masterful synthesis of the admiral's entire work and its amazing compression. Hereafter, no one interested in American naval history, Mahan's ideas, or the strategic role of sea power can rightly go without reading Sumida's slim volume. In short, it is a masterpiece.(Brian R. SullivanJoint Force Quarterly)This is a brilliant and penetrating study which revises a great deal our commonly accepted assumptions about Mahan's arguments on the influence of seapower and on naval strategy in general. It is certain to provoke great debate.(Paul M. Kennedy, Dilworth Professor of History and Director, International Security Studies, Yale University)