FROM MAHAN TO PEARL HARBOR

American strategic theory and the rise of the Imperial Japanese Navy. A long-anticipated major work by one of Japan's leading naval historians, this book traces Alfred Thayer Mahan's influence on Japan's rise as a sea power after the publication of his classic study, "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History". Drawing on previously unused Japanese records from the three naval conferences of the 1920s, the author examines the strategic dilemma facing the Japanese navy. This book reveals how the "ghost" of Mahan hung over the naval leaders as they prepared for war against the United States causing them to make decisions based on miscalculations about American and Japanese strengths and American intentions.