Books by Christian P. Potholm

Hiding in Plain Sight: Women Warriors Throughout Time and Space takes the many, dimensions of military history, including the various modalities of warfare across cultures and periods, and integrates them with the substantial contributions of social history, women's history, black history, feminist theory, LGBTQ community, and other perspectives.

Understanding War divides war material into eighteen overarching themes of analysis and fifty seminal topics. In the process, it gives the reader access to the broadest possible array of material across both time and space, beginning with the earliest forms of warfare and concluding with the contemporary situation.

War Wisdom looks at the way societies and cultures throughout history have viewed warfare and contrary to many assumptions about warfare, the author finds a dozen key themes which are duplicated across time, space, countries and peoples. Students of military history will find these themes both surprising and illuminating.

As a Maine Guide for 20 years and a hunter and fisherman since childhood, Christian Potholm knows the woods and waters of Maine from the coast to the North Woods. He brings it all to life with these humorous tales, astonishing and intriguing characters, and real-life dialogue.

Scholar and avid campaign watcher Christian P. Potholm brings to bear his enthusiasm for politics, and his intricate understanding of campaign strategy, in This Splendid Game: Maine Campaigns and Elections, 1940-2002. For each decade covered, Potholm briefly outlines all of Maine's U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and gubernatorial elections, then delves deeper into one campaign. He examines how Margaret Chase Smith became the first woman elected to the Senate, in 1948. He looks into which factors enabled the 'Muskie revolution,' beginning when Maine's long-in-power Republican party lost the governorship to the Democrat Ed Muskie in 1954, and cresting in the Democrat Ken Curtis's hard-fought gubernatorial re-election victory in 1970. He explores how the Republican counter-revolution took hold when Bill Cohen was elected to Congress in 1972, after having won many voters by walking about 600 miles across the state; and why in 1974 and 1994 Mainers chose Independent governors, respectively James Longley, Sr., and Angus King. And he examines how the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant survived the 1980 referendum on its possible shut-down. Throughout the book, Potholm focuses especially on the dynamics of candidates' and groups' use of polling and the media. This Splendid Game yields valuable insights into politics in Maine and the art of the political campaign.

Christian Potholm has worked as a political insider and activist for much of the last forty years, dividing his time between the classroom and the election arena. By analyzing the interactive ebbs and flows of political campaigns, Potholm uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis to understand the process and make predictions regarding the outcome. He contends that political campaigns waged in the State of Maine display a strong dynamic quality independent of the instant polls and reports that our media sources use to predict outcomes. Through quantitative analysis, Potholm shows that Maine political campaigns are underpinned by a positive sense of well being unique to the country, a character that celebrates its freedom and essence in all facets of society. Potholm dissects his study using data as well as anecdotal references to share the political and psychological dimensions of Maine politics in all of their dynamism.

What are the independent variables that determine success in war? Drawing on 40 years of studying and teaching war, political scientist Christian P. Potholm presents a ''template of Mars,'' seven variables that have served as predictors of military success over time and across cultures. In Winning at War, Potholm explains these variablesΓÇötechnology, sustained ruthlessness, discipline, receptivity to innovation, protection of military capital from civilians and rulers, will, and the belief that there will always be another warΓÇöand provides case studies of their implementation, from ancient battles to today.

Campaign consultant Potholm explores the U. S. A.'s democratic process, explaining how the election of 2000 revealed the system's strengths, why low voter turn-out is not exactly a bad thing, and why politics should be entertaining.