Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2082: The Changing Character of Warfare

This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

  • Barkawi, T. Globalization and War (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).
  • Beckett, I. Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and their Opponents since 1750 (Routledge, 2001).
  • Buzan, B, Waever, O & de Wilde, J, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Lynne Rienner, 1998).
  • Caforio, G. Handbook of the Sociology of the Military (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2006).
  • Cordell, K. & Wolff, S. Ethnic conflict: causes, consequences, and responses (Cambridge: Polity, 2009/2010).
  • Farrell, T. The Norms of War: Cultural Beliefs and Modern Conflict (Lynne Rienner, 2005).
  • Farrell, T. and Terriff, T. The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology (Lynne Rienner, 2002).
  • Gray, C.S. Modern strategy (Oxford University Press, 1999).
  • Kaldor, M. New Wars and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Polity, 2006).
  • Kinsey, C. and Patterson, M.H. Contractors and War: The Transformation of United States' Expeditionary Operations (Stanford University Press, 2012).
  • Lebow, R.N. Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
  • Porter, P. Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes (Hurst, 2009).
  • Rabi, U. International intervention in local conflicts: crisis management and conflict resolution since the Cold War (London: Tauris, 2010.)
  • Shaw, M. The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq (Polity, 2005).
  • Smith, R. The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (Allen Lane, 2005).
  • Strachan, H. and Schiepers, S. (eds.), The Changing Character of War (Oxford University Press, 2011).
  • Townshend, C. (ed.), The Oxford History of Modern War (Oxford University Press, 2005).
  • Von Clausewitz, C. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. (Princeton University Press, 1976).
  • Whittaker, D. J. (ed.), The Terrorism Reader 3rd edition (London: Routledge 2007).