“The international world of states and their modern system is a literary realm,” writes Charles Hill in Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order (Yale University Press, 2010). “It is where the greatest issues of the human condition are played out.”
A distinguished lifelong diplomat and educator,Hill is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as Brady-Johnson Distinguished Fellow in Grand Strategy, Senior Lecturer in International Studies, and Senior Lecturer in Humanities at Yale University, where he has been involved with the Grand Strategy Program. In his book, Hill explores a trove of classic literary works, inspired by the conviction that “a grand strategist . . . needs to be immersed in classic texts from Sun Tzu to Thucydides to George Kennan, to gain real-world experience through internships in the realms of statecraft, and to bring this learning and experience to bear on contemporary issues.” His aim is to revive the ancient tradition of statecraft as practiced by humane and broadly educated me and women.