Grand strategy is the broad and encompassing policies and undertakings that political leaders pursue-financial, economic, military, diplomatic-to achieve their objectives in peacetime and in war. This course will examine the theory and practice of grand strategy both to illuminate how relations among city-states, empires, kingdoms and nation states have evolved over the centuries and also to identify some common challenges that have confronted all who seek to make and execute grand strategy from Pericles to Barack Obama.