This course offers an introduction to the earliest interstate relationships in human history and to the political science traditions that have been used to interpret them. We will explore the ancient polities of pharaonic Egypt, the Hittite empire, Athens, Sparta, Rome, and others to probe fundamental questions about how states interact. Are the core features of interstate relations timeless and immutable, or do they change as history progresses? Are war and anarchy constants? And how can we leverage history – even the history of the remote past – to pursue these questions as social scientists? Readings will include selections from ancient primary sources like the Amarna Letters and Thucydides as well as modern theorists in political science.
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