Alfred Thayer Mahan was the most influential naval theorist of the nineteenth century, and his two-volume study of the War of 1812 applies his strategic framework to a conflict that tested American naval power against the world’s dominant maritime force. Volume 1 covers the origins of the war, the naval balance of forces, and the opening campaigns on the Great Lakes and the Atlantic, analyzing strategic decisions with Mahan’s characteristic rigor.
Essential reading for students of naval history and the early American republic, this work remains a classic of strategic analysis as well as military history. Download this free EPUB for Volume 1 of Mahan’s authoritative account of the war that shaped American naval ambition.