PSCI 227
War and the Nation-State Spring 2017
Division II
This is not the current course catalog

As Charles Tilly famously argued, “War made the state, and the state made war”. This course explores the phenomenon of war in its broader socio-economic context during the years between the emergence of the modern nation-state in the late 18th century and the end of World War II. It examines the ways in which warfare influenced state development, and in turn, how state development changed the nature and conduct of war itself. The co-evolution of nation-states and modern warfare is studied in the context of four broad social transformations: the rise of nationalism, democratization, industrialization, and military bureaucratization. We will also discuss the causes, conduct, and consequences of the major wars of this period, including the Napoleonic Wars, the Wars of German Unification, and the cataclysmic showdowns of the twentieth century: World War I and World War II.