Mahan’s master work on sea power, and the subsequent books and essays that streamed from his hurrying pen, had world-wide repercussions on naval development and world politics. Mahan’s interpretation of history excited expansionist forces already stirring in Europe, in America, and in the Far East. His strategic ideas, derived largely from the history of British naval policy and operations, were accepted as precepts from universal application and utility, without qualification as to time and place. And the impact of these ideas was widely felt in accelerated naval development which, inside of two decades, was profoundly to alter the balance of naval power, with political repercussions on every ocean and continent.