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Michael I. Handel  Even the most creative theories in history
were not conceived in a vacuum; one way or another, they owe
something to the works of others. To describe this intellectual
and intuitive process, historian of science I. B. Cohen has
developed a concept called “the transformation of ideas,” which
reveals how great scientists have used the existing body of
knowledge as a basis of or catalyst for their own inspiration.1
Scientists such as Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, for example,
either synthesized and combined the work of others, while adding
their own ideas, or were heuristically stimulated by existing
ideas to develop their own original concepts. The same is true
of those whose creative and analytical thought processes have
“transformed” the intricacies of strategy—in this case, naval
strategy—into an innovative theory or body of work. It is well
known that Alfred Thayer Mahan, as he himself made clear, was
significantly influenced