Since their first publication, the four volumes of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations have served as the definitive source for the topic, from the colonial period to the Cold War. This revised second volume describes the causes and dynamics of United States foreign policy from 1865 to 1913, the era when the United States became one of the four great world powers and the world's greatest economic power. The dramatic expansion of global power during this period was set in motion by the strike-ridden, bloody, economic depression from 1873 to 1897 when American farms and factories began seeking overseas markets for their surplus goods, as well as by a series of foreign policy triumphs, as America extended its authority to Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal Zone, Central America, the Philippines, and China. Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt set foreign policy precedents by creating historic policies in which they used the post-1890 battleship fleet, a navy that quickly became one of the world's most powerful fleets. Ironically, as Americans searched for opportunity and stability abroad, they instead helped create revolutions in Central America, Panama, the Philippines, Mexico, China, and Russia. These outbreaks introduced the twentieth century as a century of revolutions with which the United States would have to deal as a top world power.

Since their first publication, the four volumes of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations have served as the definitive source for the topic, from the colonial period to the Cold War. The fourth volume explores the conditions in the international system at the end of World War II, the American determination to provide leadership, and the security dilemma each superpower posed for the other. This revised and expanded edition incorporates recent scholarship and revelations, carrying the narrative through the years following the end of the Cold War into the administration of Barack Obama. The author points to the nature of the Stalinist state, with its secrecy and brutal dictatorship, to explain the course of the Cold War. The character of the American political system, including the separation of political powers and the role of interest groups, prompted American leaders to exaggerate dangers abroad to enhance their domestic power. The book also provides insight into Chinese and Soviet actions during the Korean War, the Taiwan Straits crises of the 1950s, and the Cuban missile crisis. It explains the rise and fall of détente in the 1970s, describes how imperial overreach strained both the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and reflects on what the Cold War meant for the world. This new edition also examines the failure of postwar administrations to provide a workable policy with which to confront the world after the demise of the Soviet Union.

Since their first publication, the four volumes of the Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations have served as the definitive source for the topic, from the colonial period to the Cold War. The first volume proposes that the British North American colonists' preexisting desire for expansion, security, and prosperity is both the essence of American foreign relations and the root cause for the creation of the United States. The second volume describes the dynamics of United States foreign policy from 1865 to 1913, the era when the United States became one of the four great world powers and the world's greatest economic power. The third volume describes how the United States became a global power – economically, culturally, and militarily – during the period from 1913 to 1945, from the inception of Woodrow Wilson's presidency to the end of the Second World War. The revised and expanded fourth volume explores the conditions in the international system at the end of World War II, the American determination to provide leadership, and the security dilemma each superpower posed for the other, while incorporating recent scholarship and revelations, and carrying the narrative into the Barack Obama's administration.