The Project Gutenberg eBook, A History of Sea Power, by William Oliver
Stevens and Allan Westcott

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Title: A History of Sea Power

Author: William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

Release Date: March 10, 2008 [eBook #24797]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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A HISTORY OF SEA POWER

by

WILLIAM OLIVER STEVENS and ALLAN WESTCOTT

Professors in the United States Naval Academy

With Maps, Diagrams, and Illustrations

New York
George H. Doran Company

PREFACE

This volume has been called into being by the absence of any brief
work covering the evolution and influence of sea power from the
beginnings to the present time. In a survey at once so comprehensive
and so short, only the high points of naval history can be touched.
Yet it is the hope of the authors that they have not, for that
reason, slighted the significance of the story. Naval history is
more than a sequence of battles. Sea power has always been a vital
force in the rise and fall of nations and in the evolution of
civilization. It is this significance, this larger, related point
of view, which the authors have tried to make clear in recounting
the story of the sea. In regard to naval principles, also, this
general survey should reveal those unchanging truths of warfare
which have been demonstrated from Salamis to Jutland. The tendency
of our modern era of mechanical development has been to forget the
value of history. It is true that the 16" gun is a great advance
over the 32-pounder of Trafalgar, but it is equally true that the
naval officer of to-day must still sit at the feet of Nelson.

The authors would acknowledge their indebtedness to Professor F.
Wells Williams of Yale, and to the Classical Departments of Harvard