Of great permanent value and exceptional interest, and in a high degree creditable to our naval service and to the country.—­The New York Nation.

Masterly and comprehensive....  The drama of the great war unfolds itself in these pages in a manner at once novel and engrossing.—­The Spectator.

A highly interesting and an important work, having lessons and suggestions which are calculated to be of high value to the people of the United States.  His pages abound with spirited and careful accounts of the great naval battles and manoeuvres which occurred during the period treated.  We have before had occasion to praise Captain Mahan’s literary style, which is flexible, nervous, and sufficiently dignified to satisfy every reasonable demand.  It is, moreover, full of energy, and marked by a felicitous choice of language, and its tone and qualities are sustained steadily throughout.—­New York Tribune.

Of the way in which this great theme is treated we need say little; no living writer is so well qualified to do it justice as Captain Mahan, and certainly the true significance of the tremendous events of these momentous years has never been more luminously or more instructively displayed.—­London Times.

He penetrates to the real meaning of the mass of books, diplomatic, political, naval and historical, which have been written to describe the state of things in Europe during the last decade of the eighteenth century—­The Critic.

We do not hesitate to assert that, in treating this theme, he has easily surpassed all previous writers.—­Judge William O’Connor Morris in “The Academy."