A sense of power : the roots of America's global role

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A sense of power : the roots of America's global role

John A. Thompson

Cornell University Press, 2015

大学図書館所蔵 件 / 全4件

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Includes bibliographical references and index

内容説明・目次

内容説明

Why has the United States assumed so extensive and costly a role in world affairs over the last hundred years? The two most common answers to this question are "because it could" and "because it had to." Neither answer will do, according to this challenging re-assessment of the way that America came to assume its global role. The country's vast economic resources gave it the capacity to exercise great influence abroad, but Americans were long reluctant to meet the costs of wielding that power. Neither the country's safety from foreign attack nor its economic well-being required the achievement of ambitious foreign policy objectives. In A Sense of Power, John A. Thompson takes a long view of America's dramatic rise as a world power, from the late nineteenth century into the post-World War II era. How, and more importantly why, has America come to play such a dominant role in world affairs? There is, he argues, no simple answer. Thompson challenges conventional explanations of America's involvement in World War I and World War II, seeing neither the requirements of national security nor economic interests as determining. He shows how American leaders from Wilson to Truman developed an ever more capacious understanding of the national interest, and why by the 1940s most Americans came to support the price tag, in blood and treasure, attached to strenuous efforts to shape the world. The beliefs and emotions that led them to do so reflected distinctive aspects of U.S. culture, not least the strength of ties to Europe. Consciousness of the nation's unique power fostered feelings of responsibility, entitlement, and aspiration among the people and leaders of the United States. This original analysis challenges some widely held beliefs about the determinants of United States foreign policy and will bring new insight to contemporary debates about whether the nation should-or must-play so active a part in world politics.

目次

Introduction: The Problem Power as an Explanation Security as an Explanation Economic Interests as an Explanation Missionary Ideology as an Explanation Seeking an AnswerChapter 1. A New Sense of Power The Expansion of Foreign Policy The Limits of Expansion Explaining the Limitations The Sense of PowerChapter 2. Advance and Retreat, 1914-1920 The European War and American Opinion Wilson's Initial Policy The Impact of the U-Boat Increasing Involvement and Commitments Going to War Fighting the War and Preparing for Peace The Limits of Power: The Paris Peace Conference The Failure to Join the League of NationsChapter 3. A Restrained Superpower, 1920-1938 The Character of U.S. Foreign Policy in the 1920s The Apogee of IsolationismChapter 4. Lessening Restraint, 1938-1941 The Erosion of Neutrality The Impact of the Fall of France Explaining the Move toward InvolvementChapter 5. Full-Scale Involvement, 1941-1945 Wielding Global Power The Discrediting of "Isolationism" What Kind of Internationalism?Chapter 6. Assuming "the Responsibilities of Power," 1945-1952 The Commitment to Western Europe Doing More with MoreConclusionNotes Index

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