3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course will introduce you to the cornerstone literature of contemporary social sciences on war and nation-state. Literature in this course comes from a variety of disciplines including sociology, political science, history and archaeology. We will start with basic definitions of key concepts of “war”, “state” and “state formation”. Then we will read different theories of how evolutions in war and military gave rise to modern states as we see today. After that we will survey a stream of historical cases of war and state formation across Europe, Asia and Africa in different historical periods. Finally, we will contemplate what influences war and military continue to exert in contemporary societies and states, and the challenges that lie ahead.