Fall 2025
Prereq: Two subjects in Literature or permission of instructor
Units: 3-0-9 HASS-H, CI-M; Can be repeated for credit
Barring natural catastrophes, the single most important factor enhancing human flourishing has been a society’s ability to conduct war with other means: diplomacy. This closely connects the arts of war to the arts of peace. Over the past two centuries Western European and American hegemony have globally enforced the “Westphalian system” of diplomacy, which relies on principles of the equal sovereignty of states, contractual obligations, and coalition-building. Yet, this system is currently failing in the face of strongman politics, world order polarization, mass migration, deep-rooted ethnic conflict, climate injustice, and gross inequality. How can we remake our diplomatic order in the service of collective human flourishing? And what diplomatic models across world history have encouraged the art of peace-making?
We explore this question through five modules. First, we take stock of our historical moment, examining the roots of today’s Westphalian world order and of the current failure of diplomacy. Next, we build our conceptual toolbox through a comparative reading of Sunzi’s Art of War, the Chinese best-seller of East Asian martial arts and civic cleverness, and Caesar’s Commentaries on the Civil War, studied by generations of European elites including the likes of Napoleon. We then immerse ourselves in different models of diplomatic practice across world history: diplomacies of smart deception (strategists), diplomacies of lavish representation (tribute empires), religious and stone & bone diplomacies (the papacy; and temple building and relic veneration), knowledge and science diplomacy (then and now!), and soft power diplomacies (cultural and public). Next, we consider real-word, yet virtual applications of the art of war and peace. We study historical K-drama as strategy primers and play both analog and video games of diplomacy with colleagues from the MIT Game Lab, critically assessing how our media culture primes us for success—or failure—of peace-making and human flourishing. The class reaches its highpoint with a “New Diplomacy Summit,” where students present their final projects—strategies and tools for building a better world through better diplomacy. These ideas will be tested in the real world in a final zoom meeting with diplomats and policy-makers associated with the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator: https://gesda.global/
Authors include Sunzi and Caesar, ancient India’s Kautilya and Machiavelli, East Asian diplomatic ambassadors and poets, the Secret History of the Mongols, the Ottoman Çelebi’s Book of Travels, the Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, Joseph Nye and more. [Pre-1900]