person
1840–1914·also known as Mahan, Admiral Mahan
The naval historian whose The Influence of Sea Power upon History is, in Cameron's dialogue 24 recollection, the book in which he first understood — as a freshman — how "an argument could unfold itself over 400 pages." Mahan is the first step in the scale-lesson the page shares with Kierkegaard: four hundred pages here, four hundred books there, the measure of sustained seriousness Cameron sets against the dissipating meme.
Across the dialogues
24
Enters as a threshold memory — the sea-power book in which Cameron, a freshman, first understood how a single argument could run four hundred pages
Mahan marks the first threshold of intellectual scale for Cameron — the sea-power book where a freshman first saw an argument sustained across four hundred pages, the prelude to Kierkegaard's four hundred books.
"It was the Admiral Mahan's book on the influence of sea power in the world."
Connections
formative forCameron McEwen
Mahan's sea-power book was where Cameron first grasped how an argument could unfold over 400 pages.