Heresies of Sea Power Cambridge Library Collection - Naval and Military History Series

An influential work on naval strategy, The Influence of Sea Power on History (1890) by Alfred Mahan, an American naval officer, had been instrumental in reshaping military tactics in navies all around the world. Its central idea was that a nation's success was determined by its 'sea power' - its ability to command the oceans with a large fleet. Frederick Thomas Jane (1865?1916), the founding editor of All the World's Fighting Ships and All the World's Airships (which continue to this day), here recounts historical battles to argue that other factors were as crucial, if not more, in determining military outcomes. In this daring and astute critique of Mahan's work, Jane proposes that 'fitness to win' played an essential role in securing victory. First published in 1906, this work is a thought-provoking contribution to the debate that influenced the naval arms race in the period before the First World War.

Preface; Introduction; Part I. Seven Great Naval Wars and their Paradoxes: 1. The Peloponnesian War; 2. The First Punic War; 3. The Second Punic War; 4. Actium and Lepanto; 5. The Spanish Armada; 6. The Russo-Japanese War; Part II. Problems that 'Sea Power' Does Not Solve: 1. Some tactical and strategical problems; 2. Base power; 3. The guerre de course; 4. Colonies and sea power; 5. International law; 6. The invasion of England; 7. Secrecy and sea power; Part III. The Trend of Things: 1. Eternal principles; 2. The evolution of navies; 3. The dimensions of warships; 4. The evolution of the battleship; 5. 'Fitness to win'; Index.