Mahan wrote for a broad late nineteenth-century audience with different expectations from a modern academic readership. Political leaders and commercial interests had the power to support naval policy, so his argument had to reach them. A technically precise specialist work could not serve that purpose if only existing experts could read it. Accessibility and persuasion were part of Mahan's strategic contribution.
Chapter · 23:24-25:39
Writing sea power for the people who funded it
Mahan's period language was designed to persuade political and mercantile readers whose backing was necessary for an American navy.