Mahan, Alfred Thayer

Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) was a U.S. Navy officer and naval historian and theorist. He was born on September 27, 1840, at West Point, New York, the first of six children. His father, Dennis Hart Mahan (1802–1871), was a distinguished professor of engineering and the science of war and dean of the faculty at the United States Military Academy. Alfred Thayer Mahan entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1856 and graduated second in his class in 1859. Mahan’s service in the Civil War was spent on blockade duties, where he saw no serious combat. His subsequent naval career in a variety of sea and shore appointments was on the whole routine. Mahan’s first article, an essay on naval education, was published ...