Posted by Adam Quinan on January 19, 2018 at 05:50:53 user Adam.
In Reply to: Well-known book on Naval Warfare posted by Magnus Smith on January 18, 2018 at 10:04:08:
I have often wondered about this bit. It has been discussed several times before on TarBoard and no doubt elsewhere but I don't think anyone has ever come up with a definitive source for this "well-known book". I don't think that Sun Tzu is a likely source, for a start it is not about naval warfare and I also wonder how well it was known in 1920s England.
Alfred Thayer Mahan does seem a likely possibility but the quote has not yet been found in his works. Of course, John could have paraphrased the meaning in which case finding the quote would be difficult.
I wonder if there were any naval warfare books of the right date in Ransome's library? Or perhaps it was one of the one's which Ivy and Tabitha impounded and sold.
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