This timely collection of essays offers one of the first serious efforts to
assess the record of American foreign policy over the course of the twentieth
century. The essays comprise the work of political scientists as well as
historians, conservatives as well as liberals, foreign scholars as well as
Americans. Taking off from Henry Luce's vision of an "American century," the
authors discuss such important topics as the American conception of the national
interest, the tension between democracy and capitalism, the U. S. role in both
the developed and underdeveloped worlds, party politics and foreign policy, the
significance of race in American foreign relations, and the cultural