Alfred Thayer Mahan was a United States naval officer and historian, whom John Keegan called "the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century." His book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (1890) won immediate recognition, especially in Europe, and with its successor, The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (1892), made him world-famous.
The Naval War College is the staff college and "Home of Thought" for the United States Navy at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. The NWC educates and develops leaders, supports defining the future Navy and associated roles and missions, supports combat readiness, and strengthens global maritime partnerships.
William Sowden Sims was an admiral in the United States Navy who fought during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to modernize the navy. During World War I, he commanded all United States naval forces operating in Europe. He also served twice as president of the Naval War College.
John Brewster Hattendorf, FRHistS, FSNR, is an American naval historian. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than fifty books, mainly on British and American maritime history and naval warfare. In 2005, the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings described him as "one of the most widely known and well-respected naval historians in the world." In reference to his work on the history of naval strategy, an academic in Britain termed him the "doyen of US naval educators." A Dutch scholar went further to say that Hattendorf "may rightly be called one of the most influential maritime historians in the world." From 1984 to 2016, he was the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He has called maritime history "a subject that touches on both the greatest moments of the human spirit as well as on the worst, including war." In 2011, the Naval War College announced the establishment of the Hattendorf Prize for Distinguished Original Research in Maritime History, named for him. The 2014 Oxford Naval Conference - "Strategy and the Sea" - celebrated his distinguished career on April 10–12, 2014. The proceedings of the conference were published as a festschrift. In March 2016, Hattendorf received the higher doctorate of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of Oxford. Among the few Americans to have received such designation, Hattendorf remained actively engaged on the Naval War College campus after his formal retirement in 2016.
Sir Julian Stafford Corbett was a prominent British naval historian and geostrategist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works helped shape the Royal Navy's reforms of that era. One of his most famous works is Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, which remains a classic among students of naval warfare. Corbett was a good friend and ally of naval reformer Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher, the First Sea Lord. He was chosen to write the official history of British Naval operations during World War I.
Nicholas Andrew Martin Rodger FSA FRHistS FBA is a historian of the Royal Navy and senior research fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
Geoffrey Till is a British naval historian and emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies in the Defence Studies Department of King's College London. He is the Director of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies.
Charles Herbert Stockton was a rear admiral in the United States Navy and the U.S. Navy's first uniformed expert in international law. Stockton served as the President of the Naval War College, and later served as President of the George Washington University from 1910 to 1918
The Naval War College Museum in Newport, Rhode Island, is one of 10 official American museums operated by the United States Navy, under the direction of the Naval History & Heritage Command and in co-operation with the Naval War College. It is located at Building 10, Luce Avenue, Naval Station Newport. It is located in the building which first housed the Naval War College, a structure built in the early 19th century to house Newport's poor. The building is a contributing element to a National Historic Landmark District, along with Luce Hall, the college's first purpose-built building, in recognition of the War College's historical significance.
Sir John Knox Laughton was a British naval historian and arguably the first to delineate the importance of the subject of Naval history as an independent field of study. Beginning his working life as a mathematically trained civilian instructor for the Royal Navy, he later became professor of modern history at King's College London and a co-founder of the Navy Records Society. A prolific writer of lives, he penned the biographies of more than 900 naval personalities for the Dictionary of National Biography.
Rear Admiral James Vincent Purcell Goldrick, was an Australian naval historian, analyst of contemporary naval and maritime affairs, and a senior officer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Following his retirement from the RAN, Goldrick was a fellow at the Sea Power Centre – Australia and an adjunct professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He was also a member of the Naval Studies Group at the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, an adjunct professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University and a professorial fellow of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong. He was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford in the first half of 2015, and a non-resident Fellow of the Lowy Institute from 2013 to 2018.
Daniel Albert Baugh was an American historian. He has been labelled "as the definitive historian of [British] naval administration." Baugh defined his own contribution in explaining "My research field is mainly England, 1660–1840. By studying administration chiefly in terms of administrative problems, I hope to improve our understanding of both the nature of society and the development of government.". After 1982, he focused his attention on maritime, naval and geopolitical history. He died on 9 February 2024.
Luce Hall was the first purpose-built building for the U.S. Naval War College, founded at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1884. It is located at Building 1, Luce Avenue, Naval Station Newport. The building is named after Rear Admiral Stephen Luce.
Craig Lee Symonds was the Distinguished Visiting Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History for the academic years 2017–2020 at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is also Professor Emeritus at the U. S. Naval Academy, where he served as chairman of the history department. He is a distinguished historian of the American Civil War and maritime history. His book Lincoln and His Admirals received the Lincoln Prize. His book Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings was the 2015 recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature.
The president of the Naval War College is a flag officer in the United States Navy. The President's House in Newport, Rhode Island is their official residence.
James Francis McNulty was a U.S Maritime Service (USMS) Rear Admiral, a United States Navy Captain, and an educator of both Naval Officers and Merchant Marine Officers. He began his naval career in 1953 shortly after graduating from Massachusetts Maritime Academy.with a B.S. in Marine Engineering. He served as a Naval Surface Warfare Officer for twenty-two years, which included service as Commanding Officer on destroyers ,lead speechwriter for the Chief of Naval Operations (Zumwalt), and culminated in his final position as Chief of Staff of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He was a veteran of the Korean War and the Vietnam War. and retired from the U.S. Navy in 1977. As a firm believer in "giving back", he went on to serve the next generation as an educator and administrator in the United States Maritime Service, as Academic Dean at Maine Maritime Academy, Head of the Marine Transportation Department at Texas A&M University Maritime Academy, and ultimately as Superintendent of Great Lakes Maritime Academy.
Lieutenant Commander B. Mitchell Simpson III, U.S. Navy (Ret.), was a professor of law, attorney, former naval officer, and naval historian, who is best known for his biography of Admiral Harold R. Stark.
William McCarty Little was a United States Navy officer of the late 19th century. He is most noted for his contributions to the development of naval wargaming at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
The Laughton Unit [Laughton Naval History Unit] is a research unit which conducts research and teaching on naval history, theory and maritime strategy.
Herbert Rosinski was a German and later American military historian.
