Dr. Seuss and the Art of War: Secret Military Lessons

Dr. Seuss’s imaginative, whimsical children’s tales are in fact packed with insights on national security and military strategy. Theodor Geisel’s anti-totalitarian and pro-democracy views coming out of his WWII experiences are embedded in his classic books illuminating military topics such as strategy, insurgency, deterrence, cyber war, and more.

Montgomery McFate is a professor at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University and a JD from Harvard Law School. She is the author and/or editor of Considering Anthropology and Small Wars (Routledge 2020); Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire (Oxford University Press 2018); Social Science Goes to War (Oxford University Press 2015), among others. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Defense and Security Analysis, Journal of Information Warfare, Journal of Small Wars & Insurgencies, and Joint Forces Quarterly. She was a key contributor to US Army Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.