Ph.D Exam in Security Studies: History Reading List
Updated spring 2009
Classics
1. C. von Clausewitz, On War
2. V. Lenin, “What is to be Done?,” “Imperialism”
3. N. Machiavelli, The Prince
4. ---. The Discourses
5. A. Mahan, The Influence of Seapower upon History
6. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
General Works:
7. G. Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary
History
8. G. Blainey, The Causes of War
9. R. Cameron, A Consise Economic History of the
World
10.
G. Herring, From Colony to Superpower
11. M. Howard, War in European History
12. D. Kagan, On the Origins of War
13. P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
14. Neustadt and May, Thinking in Time
Military History:
15. J. Black, War and the World: Military Power and
the Fate of Continents
16. V. Hanson, Carnage and Culture
17. J. House, Combined Arms Warfare in the
Twentieth Century
18. J. Keegan, A History of Warfare
19. J. Lynn, Battle
Making of the Twentieth-Century:
20.
21.
D. Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace
E. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes
22. R. Holden, Armies without Nations: Public
Violence and State Formation in Central America
23.
T. Judt, Postwar
24. F. Katz, The Secret War in Mexico
25. M. MacMillan, Paris 1919
26. E. Manela, The Wilsonian Moment
27.
R. Overy, Why the Allies Won
28.
R. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism
29. P. Silva, The Soldier and the State in South
America
30.
G. Weinberg, A World at Arms
The Cold War
31. M. Evangelista, Unarmed Forces
32. J. L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment
33. ---. We Now Know.
34. W. LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War
35.
L. Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split
36. W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military
37. M. Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace
38. Zelikow and Rice, Germany Unified and Europe
Transformed
39. V. Zubok, A Failed Empire
The Superpowers and the Developing World
40.
S. Cagaptay, Islam, Secularism and Nationalism
in Modern Turkey
41. M. Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution
42. D. Finkelstein et al., Chinese Warfighting: The
PLA Experience
43.
P. Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan
Revolution and the United States.
44. W. LeoGrande. Our Own Backyard: The United
States in Central America, 1977-1992
45. F. Logevall, Choosing War
46. R. McMahon, The Cold War on the Periphery
47. A. Musallam, From Secularism to Jihad
48. J. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife
49.
M. Oren, Six Days of War
50. M. Perez-Stable, The Cuban Revolution: Origins,
Course, and Legacy
51. The Soviet-Afghan War
52. B. Tibi, Arab Nationalism
53. O. Westad, The Global Cold War
54.
S. Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism
The Chinese Military Tradition
55.
D. Graff and R. Higham, A Military History of
China
56.
A. Johnson, Cultural Realism: Strategic
Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History
57. J. Lewis and X. Litai, Imagined Enemies
58.
A. Scobell, China’s Use of Military Force
59.
M. Swaine and A. Tellis, Interpreting China’s
Grand Strategy
60.
A. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence