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...