Alfred Thayer Mahan is one of those oft-referred-to but little read historical figures whose staggering written output has been reduced by name-droppers to a single catch phrase: Naval Consortium. However, like Clausewitz, the man cannot so neatly be summed up without misinterpretation or drastic loss of understanding. Sumida's "reconsidering" of the seminal Navy man attempts to put things right, and mostly succeeds. In Inventing Grand Strategy, Sumida has written a wondrously clear and concise executive summary of Mahan's work, with a focus on the psychologically crushing moral aspects of leadership decision-making during wartime. To this end, there is plenty of talk regarding all the determination, courage, fear, boldness, danger, will, spirit, and indecision inherent in a situation where organized groups of strangers try to kill one another. This nonphysical component of war is often pushed to the wayside, but Sumida chooses to zero in on the men rather than the machines, to startling visceral effect. At the aesthetic level, the words in Inventing Grand Strategy are not beautiful, but they don't need to be. Instead, there is a refreshing directness and force to them, complemented by a palpable feeling of full disclosure. The only really troubling thing concerning the book is the undertone of shining righteousness; Sumida's nearly religious sense of faith that he's on to something big, and if you can't see it, there's a problem on your end. This subtle but steady aggression is extraordinary, and makes Sumida sort of the MC5 of military historians. On a different note, as good and interesting and insightful as the body of the book is, the real prize is the introduction. Here, Sumida manages to harmoniously and elegantly correlate musical improvisation to military improvisation, with a touch of Zen thrown in. A sight to behold.