Excerpt from Story of Sea Power 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 sig nificance 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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.