If you want to get your students to really read the American foreign policy book you assign—to fully digest and assimilate its content—select a book that is compelling, thought provoking, and relevant. Drawing on the Bush administration’s foreign policy maneuvering and the realities of a post–9/11 world, Thomas M. Magstadt goes beyond a mere recitation of events in U.S. diplomatic history. He instead paints a vivid portrayal of the tension between the pursuit of power and the adherence to principle deeply embedded in the nation’s political culture. Magstadt traces the country’s move from vulnerable upstart in 1789 to great power by 1898 to unrivaled dominance at the turn of the twenty-first century. The United States started off relatively weak in the international balance of power system, giving rise to isolationism and a rhetorical flourish grounded in moral principles. But now, as the world’s only superpower, considerations of security and self-interest compete head-to-head with the moral imperative for global leadership and the promotion of democratic ideals. The dynamics of process also matter in this struggle. This brief text illuminates the complexities of both policy– and decision-making in a way that balances coverage more compactly and more analytically than core texts do, thereby improving readability and student critical thinking. An Empire If You Can Keep It avoids polemics but does not shy away from the controversy raging in intellectual and policy circles over the Bush Doctrine. Magstadt places recent foreign policy developments in the context of America’s historic sense of purpose, stressing the search for a new consensus and a new balance between power and principle, between hard and soft power.

Table of Contents:
Table of ContentsPreface; Maps1. America's Foreign Policy: Product, Process, and PurposeForeign Policy As Product: A U.S. Approach; Foreign Policy As Process: Getting Organized; Realism and Idealism in American Foreign Policy; The Limits of American Power; Power Politics and the Pursuit of Principles after September 11Conclusion2. Ideals and Self Interest: The American WayThe Founders and Foreign Policy; Young America, Old World; Europe, Keep Out!; American Wars; From Isolationism to Hegemony; Conclusion 3. Hegemony and Insolvency: The Burdens of a Great Power The Concept of Solvency; Latin America: Big Stick Diplomacy; The New Frontier: Opening Doors in Asia; World War I: Replacing the Old Order; Wilson's New World Order; Losing the Peace: The Tragedy of Versailles; Conclusion4. Between Wars: Collective Security and Delusions of PeaceCollective Insecurity (1919-1935); Back to the Future (1936-1941); The Failed Search for Solvency; Conclusion5. The Cold War: Containment and DeterrenceThe End of Isolationism; The Arsenal of Democracy: An Emerging Superpower; Containment: Big Idea, Big Price Tag; Containment Goes to War: Korea; Containment and Deterrence; The Nifty Fifties: Calm before the Storm; Conclusion6. Intervention against Communism: From Kennedy to ReaganForeign Policy on Hold (1964-1971); When Democracy Is Bad for America: Chile; Detente and Decline (1972-1980); The Limits of Idealism: The Carter Legacy; Bouncing Back: The Reagan Presidency, 1981-1989; Conclusion7. Democracy and Anarchy: America in the New World OrderPolicy without Vision (1989-1993); The Gulf War (1990-1991); The New Interventionism; Reinventing Foreign Policy (1993-1997); The Neoconservative Challenge; Conclusion8. From Intervention to Preemption: America's New CrusadeRussia: Neither Enemy Nor Partner; Reinventing NATO; Terrorism: Mischief or Mortal Threat?; Will the Real George W. Bush Please Stand?; An Act of War: September 11, 2001; America's New Crusade in Historical Perspective; From Clinton to Bush: A Study in Contrasts; Conclusion9. Power, Principles, and War: The Limits of Foreign PolicyThe Meaning of September 11, 2001; Doctrines versus Principles; Empires and Blowback; The Deadly "Game" of War; War and the Economy; Back to the Future; Conclusion; Index