Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations from 1897

Howard Jones

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2001 - History - 555 pages

Crucible of Power is an updated, revised version of Howard Jones's classic text Quest for Security: A History of U.S. Foreign Relations from 1897. This book, available again for use in the classroom, presents a straightforward, balanced, and comprehensive history of American international relations and the major events in the nation's foreign affairs from 1897 to the present.

Crucible of Power demonstrates the complexities involved in the decision-making process that led to the rise and decline of the United States (relative to the ascent of other nations) in world power status. The book focuses on the personalities, security interests, and expansionist tendencies behind the formation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy and highlights the intimate relationship between foreign and domestic policy. The author also examines the historical antecedents of the nation's twentieth-century foreign policy.

This volume relies on the natural chronology of historical events to organize and narrate the story as the nation's leaders saw it. Using this narrative approach, the tangled and often confusing nature of foreign affairs is uncovered without the illusion that in the past, American foreign relations took place in a well-ordered fashion. From this history, students will understand the plight of present-day policymakers who encounter an array of problems that are rarely susceptible to simple analysis and ready solution.

A companion volume to this book, Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations to 1913 is also available. Crucible of Power is an indispensable core text for American diplomatic history courses and courses on twentieth-century American foreign policy.

Contents

• US Imperialism and the New Manifest Destiny 18971900: 1
• Theodore Roosevelt and the Search for World Order 19001913: 28
• Woodrow Wilson and Missionary Diplomacy Prologue to US Entry into World War I 19131917: 53
• World War I and the League of Nations 19171921: 85
• The Independent Internationalism of the United States 19211933: 112
• The Coming of World War II 19331939: 135
• From Europe to Pearl Harbor 19391941: 163
• Wartime Diplomacy and the Origins of the Cold War 19411945: 191
• Cold War and Containment in Europe and the New East 19451950: 227
• Cold War and Containment in East Asia 19501953: 261
• Containment Continued The Eisenhower Years 19531961: 285
• Containment at the Brink Kennedy and Cuba 19611963: 323
• Containment in Collapse Johnson and Vietnam 19631969: 354
• Vietnamization through Detente A New Containment 19691977: 386
• The New World Order Jimmy Carter and the Diplomacy of Human Rights 19771981: 420
• Cold War II Reagan and the Revival of Containment 19811989: 448
• The End of the Cold War and Afterward 1989: 486
• Index: 527

About the author

Howard Jones is University Research Professor in the Department of History at University of Alabama.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations from 1897; G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series
• Author: Howard Jones
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2001
• ISBN: 0842029184, 9780842029186
• Length: 555 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / General; Political Science / International Relations / General