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This course deals with the role of the intellectual in world politics. It argues that the true intellectual is a moral gadfly: a voice of conscience that exposes the contradictions, hypocrisies, compromises and injustices of the social order. Intellectuals tell uncomfortable truths, although they do so in varying ways and use different means to their end. This is why the course contains different kinds of intellectual production: novels, memoirs, manifestoes, documentaries, propaganda, and philosophical essays are all represented here. It is also at pains to underline the importance of intellectuals. None of the intellectuals here is an “ivory tower academic.” All of them exercised a distinct though not easily measurable impact on the history of our times.