This course provides an overview of the history and modern issues of peace and war with an emphasis on the institutions in Washington, D.C. (ie. Pentagon, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Amnesty International, State Department, CIA). Through reading ethnographic and historical case studies, as well as theoretical, journalistic, and polemical works, the course explores why and how the United States has engaged in and continues to engages in war while the course simultaneously seeks to help students understand the policy and activist communities at work trying to stop interventions and actions abroad.  At its core, the debate over war and peace revolves around key perspectives on the relationships among governance, power, politics and economics. The course plans to examine media coverage of war as it also engages in fictional representations of heroes, patriotism and the debate about war in society.