Previously titled "History of Political Warfare"

The objective of this course is to prepare the student to master the basic knowledge of political and psychological warfare as instruments of leadership and statecraft from antiquity to the present, and with an eye toward the future.

Using classical writings and modern works, the course surveys political warfare of the ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans; ancient India and China; early and middle Christian civilizations including Rome and Byzantium and the Medieval and Renaissance-era European states; the Aztec empire; the American Revolution; the French Revolution; the British empire; Japan; and 20th Century totalitarian movements and regimes. It also examines present-day political warfare of democracies and terrorists.

The course pays close attention to the use of words, rhetoric, language and images; art, architecture, culture, economics, intelligence and counterintelligence, nationalism, psychology, propaganda, and counterpropaganda.

Students will read from Aristotle, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Kautilya's Arthasastra, Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy and The Prince with a new translation on the meaning of words; Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Antonio Gramsci, and others.

In addition to the readings, students must write 7 short papers in 14 weeks.

Students should complete the course with a comfortable understanding of political and psychological warfare as fundamental elements of leadership and statecraft.

Required Readings (All are on reserve in library)

John K. Alexander, Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, trans. H.C. Lawson-Tancred (Penguin Classics, 1991).

Russell Bourne, Cradle of Violence: How Boston's Waterfront Mobs Ignited the American Revolution (Wiley, 2006).

David Forgacs, ed, The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916-1935 (New York University Press, 2000).

Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Harvey C.

Rex Mason, Propaganda and Subversion the Old Testament (London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1997).

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, translated and edited by Angelo Codevilla. Note: Students in this class must read the Codevilla translation, which preserves and explains Machiavelli's distortion of language.

T. N. Ramaswamy, Essentials of Indian Statecraft: Kautilya's Arthasastra for Contemporary Readers (Munrshiram Maoharlal, 1962, 1994).

Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades? (Ignatius Press, 3rd Ed., 2002).

Paul A. Smith, Jr., On Political War (National Defense University, 1989). Note: The Professor assigns this book in all his international communication classes. Duplication is intentional.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford University Press, 1963).

Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Day (Manchester University Press, 3rd. ed., 2003).

Edmund R. Thompson, ed., Secret New England: Spies of the American Revolution (The Provincial Press, 2001).