The literature on the history of U.S. foreign relations is enormous, and I am including in this brief and highly selective listing only those works most valuable to me and most likely to be useful to nonspecialists. The indispensable bibliography is Robert L. Beisner, ed., American Foreign Relations Since 1600 (2nd ed., 2 vols., Santa Barbara, Calif., 2003). Jerald A. Combs discusses trends in historical writing in American Diplomatic History: Two Centuries of Changing Interpretations (Berkeley, Calif., 1983). Michael J. Hogan, ed., America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941 (New York, 1995) covers recent historiography. Bruce W. Jentleson and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations (4 vols., New York, 1997) is a valuable reference work. The State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States series, now publishing on the Nixon years, is an indispensable and splendidly edited collection of documents.
Numerous books set forth broad interpretations. George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (New York, 1951) outlines this scholar/diplomat's realist critique of U.S. foreign policy. William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (3rd ed., New York, 1972) elaborates the highly influential interpretation of Open Door imperialism. Robert Dallek, The American Style of Foreign Policy: Cultural Politics and Foreign Affairs (New York, 1983) stresses domestic politics, and Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, Conn., 1987) ideology. Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 (New York, 1997) is a readable neo-realist interpretation. In Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York, 2001), Walter Russell Mead uses key figures to elaborate different approaches to U.S. foreign policy. Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York, 1987) places the U.S. ascension to great-power status in the larger context of world politics and especially economics. Surveys of specific topics include Melvin Small, Democracy and Diplomacy: The Impact of Domestic Politics on U.S. Foreign Policy (Baltimore, Md., 1996), Ralph B. Levering, The Public and American Foreign Policy, 1918–1978 (New York, 1978), Ole Holsti, American Opinion and American Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1996), Alexander DeConde, Ethnicity, Race, and American Foreign Policy (Boston, 1992), and Alfred E. Eckes, Opening America's Market: U.S. Foreign Trade Policy Since 1776 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1995).
There are countless books analyzing U.S. relations with individual countries and regions. Some of the most useful for this study were Warren I. Cohen, America's Response to China: An Interpretative History of Sino-American Relations (4th ed., New York, 2000), Charles E. Neu, The Troubled Encounter: The United States and Japan (New York, 1975), Walter LaFeber, The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations (New York, 1997), Robert J. McMahon, The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia Since World War II (New York, 1999), John Lewis Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History (rev. ed., New York, 1990), David Schoenbaum, The United States and the State of Israel (New York, 1993), Howard F. Cline, The United States and Mexico (rev. ed., Boston, 1963), Karl M. Schmitt, Mexico and the United States, 1821–1973: Conflict and Coexistence (New York, 1974), Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), Mark T. Gilderhus, The Second Century: U.S.–Latin American Relations Since 1889 (Wilmington, Del., 2000), Kyle Longley, In the Eagle's Shadow: The United States and Latin America (Wheeling, Ill., 2002), Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East Since 1945 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), and Michael B. Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present (New York, 2007).
1776–1815: Max Savelle's The Origins of American Diplomacy: The International History of Anglo-America, 1492–1763 (New York, 1967) is still valuable for the colonial background. Fred Anderson, The War That Made America (New York, 2005) is superb on the French and Indian War. Bradford Perkins, The Creation of a Republican Empire, 1776–1865 (New York, 1993) and William Earl Weeks, Building the Continental Empire: American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Chicago, 1996) are excellent surveys of the beginnings of U.S. foreign policy.
Books that put Revolutionary War diplomacy in an international setting are Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution (rev. ed., Bloomington, Ind., 1957), Richard Van Alstyne, Empire and Independence: The International History of the American Revolution (New York, 1965), and Jonathan R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (New Haven, Conn., 1985). Felix Gilbert, The Beginnings of American Foreign Policy: To the Farewell Address (New York, 1965) offers stimulating insights not only for the Revolutionary period but also for subsequent U.S. policies. Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 (rev. ed., New York, 2005) is a richly detailed, readable account of the period. Major studies of key figures include James H. Hutson, John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution (Lexington, Ky., 1980) and Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (New York, 1965), which highlights John Jay's role. Gordon S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (New York, 2004), Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, Conn., 2002), and Stacy Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (New York, 2005) chronicle Franklin's major role. William Stinchcombe, The American Revolution and the French Alliance (Syracuse, N.Y., 1969) is a valuable monograph. James M. Merrell, "Declarations of Independence: Indian-White Relations in the New Nation," in Jack P. Greene, ed., The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits (New York, 1987) covers a much neglected dimension of the Revolution.
There is no up-to-date study of diplomacy during the Confederation period. The older surveys by Merrill Jensen, The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, 1781–1789 (New York, 1950) and Richard B. Morris, The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789 (New York, 1987), are still useful. Jack N. Rakove, The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (New York, 1997) has much to say about foreign policy. Charles R. Ritcheson, Aftermath of Revolution: British Policy Toward the United States, 1783–1795 (New York, 1971) provides a British perspective, and Frederick W. Marks III, Independence on Trial: Foreign Affairs and the Making of the Constitution (2nd ed., Wilmington, Del., 1986) stresses the importance of foreign policy in the making of the Constitution. David C. Hendrickson, Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (Lawrence, Kans., 2003) puts a new "internationalist" twist on the origins of the Constitution.
Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick's The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800 (New York, 1993) provides a richly detailed and eminently readable introduction to the period. Lawrence S. Kaplan analyzes the roles of two key figures in Alexander Hamilton: Ambivalent Anglophile (Wilmington, Del., 2002) and Thomas Jefferson: Westward the Course of Empire (Wilmington, Del., 1999). For Hamilton, see also John Lamberton Harper, Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, Eng., 2004). Richard H. Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Beginnings of the Military Establishment in America (New York, 1984) is excellent on military policy. Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1980) illuminates the connection between landed and commercial expansion in republican ideology. Harry Ammon, The Genet Mission (New York, 1973) is the standard account. With somewhat different emphases, Samuel Flagg Bemis, Jay's Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy (rev. ed., New Haven, Conn., 1962) and Jerald A. Combs, The Jay Treaty: Political Battleground of the Founding Fathers (Berkeley, Calif., 1970) analyze that controversial accord. For Anglo-American relations subsequent to the treaty, see Bradford Perkins, The First Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1795–1805 (Berkeley, Calif., 1967). Samuel Flagg Bemis, Pinckney's Treaty: America's Advantage from Europe's Distress, 1783–1800 (rev. ed., New Haven, Conn., 1960), remains the best account. The crisis with France is studied in Alexander DeConde, Entangling Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy Under George Washington (Durham, N.C., 1958) and The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797–1801 (New York, 1966), and William Stinchcombe, The XYZ Affair (Westport, Conn., 1981).
Jefferson's leadership is evaluated critically in Forrest McDonald, The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson (Lawrence, Kans., 1976) and more favorably in Merrill Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York, 1970), still the best one-volume biography. Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1990) is a provocative realist critique. Robert J. Allison, The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776–1815 (New York, 1995) treats the Barbary wars in the context of American attitudes toward Islam. Peter S. Onuf, Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville, Va., 2000) is a stimulating analysis of Jefferson's expansionist vision. Alexander DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana (New York, 1976) is the standard study, but see also Sanford Levison and Bartholomew Sparrow, The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion, 1803–1898 (Lanham, Md., 2006) and Frank L. Owsley Jr. and Gene A. Smith, Filibusters and Expansionists: Jeffersonian Manifest Destiny (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1997). Steven E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (New York, 1996) provides a stirring account of that exciting and enormously significant venture. The importance of the Haitian revolution, which cannot be overestimated, is analyzed in David Geggus, The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia, S.C., 2001). The origins of the War of 1812 have been one of the more controversial topics in early U.S. diplomatic history. Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: England and the United States (Berkeley, Calif., 1961) is critical of Jefferson and Madison. Roger H. Brown, The Republic in Peril: 1812 (New York, 1971) stresses party politics, while Reginald Horsman, The Causes of the War of 1812 (1962) emphasizes sectional issues. The best recent analysis is J.C.A. Stagg, Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early Republic, 1783–1830 (Princeton, N.J., 1983). Steven Watts, The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820 (Baltimore, Md., 1987) highlights generational anxieties. Burton I. Spivak, Jefferson's English Crisis: Commerce, Embargo, and the Republican Revolution (Charlottesville, Va., 1979) is good on the embargo. Clifford L. Egan, Neither Peace nor War: Franco-American Relations, 1803–1812 (Baton Rouge, 1983) and Peter P. Hill, Napoleon's Troublesome Americans: Franco-American Relations, 1804–1815 (Washington, 2005) deal with that sometimes neglected aspect of the larger crisis. The Indian "problem" is discussed from the Indian perspective in R. David Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet (Lincoln, Neb., 1983), and Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership (New York, 1984). Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana, Ill., 1989) is the best scholarly study. Robert Allen Rutland, The Presidency of James Madison (Lawrence, Kans., 1990) provides a balanced analysis of that president's much criticized war leadership. The military aspects are analyzed from a British/Canadian perspective in George F. G. Stanley, The War of 1812: Land Operations (Ottawa, 1983).
1815–1861: Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 (New York, 1991) and Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York, 2007) provide detailed and lively accounts of the period with sharply divergent interpretations. Paul A. Varg, United States Foreign Relations, 1820–1860 (East Lansing, Mich., 1979) is still useful. Noble Cunningham Jr., The Presidency of James Monroe (Lawrence, Kans., 1996), Mary Wilma Hargreaves, The Presidency of John Quincy Adams (Lawrence, Kans., 1985) and Donald R. Cole, The Presidency of Andrew Jackson (Lawrence, Kans., 1993) are scholarly analyses of these administrations. The activities of Adams, the most important figure in foreign policy, are discussed in the still-valuable Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy (rev. ed., New York, 1973) and the more critical William Earl Weeks, John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire (Lexington, Ky., 1992) and James E. Lewis Jr., John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union (Wilmington, Del., 2001). Robert V. Remini's Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York, 1991) and The Life of Andrew Jackson (New York, 2001) are scholarly, highly readable biographies of two key leaders. Bradford Perkins discusses the budding Anglo-American accord in Adams and Castlereagh: England and the United States, 1812–1823 (Berkeley, Calif., 1964). The Monroe Doctrine not surprisingly has inspired a sizeable literature. The background in terms of Russia can be found in the excellent Norman E. Saul, Distant Friends: The United States and Russia, 1763–1867 (Lawrence, Kans., 1991) and in terms of Greece and Turkey in James A. Field Jr., America and the Mediterranean World, 1776–1882 (Princeton, N.J., 1969). Arthur P. Whitaker, The United States and the Independence of Latin America, 1800–1830 (New York, 1964) remains the standard work. Dexter Perkins's extensive writing on the subject is conveniently summarized in A History of the Monroe Doctrine (Boston, 1963). William W. Kaufman, British Policy and Latin America, 1800–1830 (New Haven, Conn., 1951) is still useful. Ernest R. May, The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (Cambridge, Mass., 1976) stresses domestic politics. John M. Belohlavek, "Let the Eagle Soar!" The Foreign Policy of Andrew Jackson (Lincoln, Neb., 1985) is an excellent "revisionist" study. John H. Schroeder, Shaping A Maritime Empire: The Commercial and Diplomatic Role of the American Navy, 1829–1861 (Westport, Conn., 1985) appraises the role of the Navy in nineteenth-century expansion. Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 1995) compile varied perspectives on this tragic episode.
Administrations from 1841 to 1861 are covered in Norma Lois Peterson, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler (Lawrence, Kans., 1989), Paul H. Bergeron, The Presidency of James K. Polk (Lawrence, Kans., 1987), Elbert B. Smith, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (Lawrence, Kans., 1988), Larry Gara, The Presidency of Franklin Pierce (Lawrence, Kans., 1991), and Elbert B. Smith, The Presidency of James Buchanan (Lawrence, Kans., 1975). Edward P. Crapol, John Tyler: The Accidental President (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2006) is an excellent recent biography of a neglected figure. The classic analysis of Manifest Destiny remains Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Baltimore, Md., 1935). Other major works include Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation (New York, 1966), Thomas Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Jacksonian America (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985), and Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny–American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York, 1995). Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny (Cambridge, Mass., 1981) is indispensable. For Anglo-American relations in the 1840s, see Reginald Stuart, United States Expansionism and British North America, 1775–1871 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1988), Howard Jones and Donald Rakestraw, Prologue to Manifest Destiny: Anglo-American Relations in the 1840s (Wilmington, Del., 1997), and Howard Jones, To the Webster-Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-American Relations, 1783–1843 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1977). The crises with Britain over Oregon and Texas are expertly covered in Norman A. Graebner, Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion (rev. ed., Claremont, Calif., 1989) and David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon and the Mexican War (Columbia, Mo., 1973). Thomas M. Leonard, James K. Polk: A Clear and Unquestionable Destiny (Wilmington, Del., 2001) is an up-to-date study of that leading expansionist. Mexico's perspective can be gleaned from Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of a Nation-A History of Modern Mexico (New York, 1997), Gene Brack, Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821–1846: An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War (Albuquerque, N.M., 1975), and William Depalo, The Mexican National Army, 1822–1852 (College Station, Tex., 1997). K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican War, 1846–1848 (New York, 1974) is a good military history. John M. Schroeder, Mr. Polk's War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846–1848 (Madison, Wisc., 1973) analyzes domestic opposition. Robert W. Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (New York, 1987) looks at literature, art, music, and the popular press to show the excitement and expansive vision aroused by the war. The most recent study of the Great United States Exploring Expedition is Nathaniel Philbrick, Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842 (New York, 2003). Arthur Power Dudden, The American Pacific: From the Old China Trade to the Present (New York, 1992) offers a readable overview of U.S. expansion into the Pacific region. Michael H. Hunt, The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914 (New York, 1983) provides a good introduction to involvement in China. Jack L. Hammersmith, Spoilsmen in a "Flowery Fairyland": The Development of the U.S. Legation in Japan, 1859–1906 (Kent, Ohio, 1998) is valuable for the Harris mission and its successors. For filibustering in South and Central America and the demise of Manifest Destiny, see Michael A. Morrison, Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997), Joseph A. Stout, Schemers and Dreamers—Filibustering in Mexico, 1848–1921 (Fort Worth, Tex., 2002), Robert E. May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), and Joseph A. Fry, Dixie Looks Abroad: The South and U.S. Foreign Relations, 1789–1973 (Baton Rouge, La., 2002).
1861–1901: James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988) is a splendid survey of that epic struggle, Charles P. Roland, An American Iliad: The Story of the Civil War (Lexington, Ky., 1991) an excellent shorter study. Robert E. May, ed., The Union, the Confederacy and the Atlantic Rim (Lafayette, Ind., 1995) includes essays by leading scholars on the international dimensions of the conflict. The best foreign policy survey is D. P. Crook, Diplomacy During the American Civil War (New York, 1975), a shorter version of The North, the South, and the Great Powers, 1861–1865 (New York, 1974). The Union presidencies are covered in Philip S. Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Lawrence, Kans., 1994) and Albert Castel, The Presidency of Andrew Johnson (Lawrence, Kans., 1979). Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate Nation, 1861–1865 (New York, 1979) and Charles P. Roland, The Confederacy (Chicago, 1960) provide insights into southern diplomacy. Charles M. Hubbard, The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy (Knoxville, Tenn., 1998) is an up-to-date survey. Frank L. Owsley and Harriet C. Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America (2nd ed., Chicago, 1959) is the standard account. Howard Jones's Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992) and Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War (Lincoln, Neb., 1999) are excellent, the latter especially on Lincoln's vision of a slavery-free Union. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 2005) highlights the extraordinary working relationship between the president and his secretary of state. R.J.M. Blackett, Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War (Baton Rouge, La., 2001) is very good on British public opinion, which, he argues, was important in determining policy. Saul's Distant Friends is excellent on the Russo-American relationship. Martin B. Duberman, Charles Francis Adams, 1807–1886 (Boston, 1861) and Joseph A. Fry, Henry S. Sanford: Diplomacy and Business in Nineteenth Century America (Reno, Nev., 1982) are fine biographies of two key Union diplomats. Post–Civil War expansion is treated in Ernest N. Paolino, The Foundations of American Expansionism: William Henry Seward and U.S. Foreign Policy (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), Ronald J. Jensen, The Alaska Purchase and Russian-American Relations (Seattle, Wash., 1975), and Paul Holbo, Tarnished Expansion: The Alaska Scandal, the Press, and Congress, 1867–1877 (Knoxville, Tenn., 1983).
Not surprisingly, the Gilded Age has drawn only modest attention from historians of U.S. foreign relations. Good surveys are John A. Garraty, The New Commonwealth, 1877–1890 (New York, 1968) and Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Gilded Age, or, The Hazard of New Functions (New York, 1997). Broad studies of U.S. foreign policy, all emphasizing expansionist tendencies, are David Healy, U.S. Expansionism: The Imperialist Surge in the 1890s (Madison, Wisc., 1970), Charles C. Campbell, The Transformation of American Foreign Relations, 1865–1900 (New York, 1976) and Milton Plesur, America's Outward Thrust: Approaches to Foreign Affairs, 1865–1900 (DeKalb, Ill., 1971). Robert L. Beisner, From the Old Diplomacy to the New, 1865–1900 (2nd ed., Arlington Heights, Ill., 1986) develops an interesting interpretation of what he calls "old paradigm diplomacy." Walter LaFeber's The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1963) and The American Search for Opportunity, 1865–1913 (New York, 1993) emphasize economic forces, while David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Trade and Investment: American Economic Expansion in the Hemisphere, 1865–1900 (Columbia, Mo., 1998) questions the existence of a systematic policy of economic expansion. Eric T. L. Love, Race over Empire: Racism and American Imperialism, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2004) is excellent. Ari Hoogenboom, The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes (Lawrence, Kans., 1988), Justus D. Doenecke, The Presidencies of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur (Lawrence, Kans., 1981), Richard E. Welch Jr., The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (Lawrence, Kans., 1988), and Homer E. Socolofsky and Allan B. Spetter, The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison (Lawrence, Kans., 1987) cover the administrations. David M. Pletcher, The Awkward Years: American Foreign Relations Under Garfield and Arthur (Columbia, Mo., 1962) is a valuable monograph. Edward P. Crapol, James G. Blaine: Architect of Empire (Wilmington, Del., 2000) is a fine biography of the period's most colorful and dynamic figure; David F. Healy, James G. Blaine and Latin America (Columbia, Mo., 2001) is also useful. Joseph A. Fry, John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy (Knoxville, Tenn., 1992) skillfully covers the career of a southern expansionist. Norman E. Saul, Concord and Conflict: The United States and Russia, 1867–1914 (Lawrence, Kans., 1996), is excellent on U.S. business activities in Russia. David L. Anderson, Imperialism and Idealism: American Diplomats in China, 1861–1898 (Bloomington, Ind., 1985) is good on China policy, Stuart Creighton Miller, The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1785–1882 (Berkeley, Calif., 1969) on Chinese in the United States. The missionary movement took off during the Gilded Age. Among the best studies are Jane Hunter, The Gospel of Gentility: American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the-Century China (New Haven, Conn., 1984), Patricia R. Hill, The World Their Household: The American Women's Foreign Mission Movement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1985), and Sylvia M. Jacobs, ed., Black Americans and the Missionary Movement in Africa (Westport, Conn., 1982). Wayne Flynt and Gerald Berkeley, Taking Christianity to China: Alabama Missionaries in the Middle Kingdom, 1850–1950 (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1997) emphasizes the missionaries' selling of their work at home.
Eighteen nineties expansionism has drawn a great deal of attention. A readable recent survey of the period by a specialist in U.S. foreign relations is H. W. Brands, The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s (New York, 1998). Interpretive studies include Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (Baltimore, Md., 1936), Ernest R. May, Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power (New York, 1961) and American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (New York, 1968), LaFeber, New Empire and Search for Opportunity, Beisner, Old Diplomacy to the New, and Thomas Schoonover, Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization (Lexington, Ky., 2003). Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945 (New York, 1982) covers a broader period and looks at cultural as well as economic and landed expansion. The once lampooned William McKinley has emerged as a key figure, the first modern president. Important works include H. Wayne Morgan, William McKinley and His America (Syracuse, N.Y., 1963) and especially Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of William McKinley (Lawrence, Kans., 1980). Robert C. Hilderbrand, Power and the People: Executive Management of Public Opinion in Foreign Affairs, 1877–1921 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981) is excellent on McKinley's innovations in management of the press.
The War of 1898 and the acquisition of overseas empire are analyzed from the perspective of gender in Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven, Conn., 1998) and from a more traditional point of view in John L. Offner, An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain over Cuba, 1895–1898 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992). The Crisis of 1898: Colonial Redistribution and Nationalist Mobilization, edited by Angel Smith and Emma Dávila-Cox (New York, 1998), contains valuable essays on numerous topics. Louis A. Pérez has challenged long-standing ideas about the war and its aftermath in Cuba Between Empires, 1878–1902 (Pittsburgh, 1983), Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy (2nd ed., Athens, Ga., 1997), On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1999), and the especially insightful The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998). David F. Trask, The War with Spain in 1898 (2nd ed., Lincoln, Neb., 1996) is a good military history, Gerald F. Linderman, The Mirror of War: American Society and the Spanish-American War (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1974) a valuable social history. Robert Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900 (2nd ed., Chicago, 1985) is excellent on the debate over imperialism. The United States' involvement in the Philippines is broadly treated in H. W. Brands, Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines (New York, 1992) and Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines (New York, 1989). The Philippines War is handled quite critically in Stuart Creighton Miller, "Benevolent Assimilation": The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 (New Haven, Conn., 1982) and more sympathetically in John M. Gates, School-books and Krags: The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898–1902 (Westport, Conn., 1973) and Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899–1902 (Lawrence, Kans., 2000), the most up-to-date and comprehensive study. Glenn Anthony May, Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War (New Haven, Conn., 1991), an important local study, raises new questions and offers new interpretations. Richard E. Welch, Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1898–1902 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978) is good on the domestic reaction. Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2006) is an important new study. Thomas J. McCormick, China Market: America's Quest for Informal Empire, 1893–1901 (Chicago, 1967) and Paul A. Varg, The Making of a Myth: The United States and China, 1897–1912 (East Lansing, Mich., 1968) debate the role of economic interests in the Open Door policy and the importance of the policy itself.
1901–1921: Judy Crichton, America 1900: The Turning Point (New York, 1998) provides an interesting glimpse at turn-of-the-century America. A good recent biography of the major figure is H. W. Brands, T. R.: The Last Romantic (New York, 1997). Studies of Roosevelt's foreign policy include Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (New York, 1962), Raymond Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries (Waltham, Mass., 1970), Frederick Marks, Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (Lincoln, Neb., 1979), Richard H. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt: Culture, Diplomacy, and Expansionism: A New View of American Imperialism (Baton Rouge, La., 1985), and Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (Lawrence, Kans., 1991). Surprisingly, there is no good biography of Root, one of the more important figures of twentieth-century America. Richard W. Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition (New York, 1954) is useful. Kenton J. Clymer, John Hay: The Gentleman as Diplomat (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1975) is good on another important and especially colorful person. The beginning of the modern foreign service is analyzed in Warren Frederick Ilchman, Professional Diplomacy in the United States, 1779–1939 (Chicago, 1961) and Richard Hume Werking, The Master Architects: Building the United States Foreign Service, 1890–1913 (Lexington, Ky., 1977). Studies of the peace movement include Charles DeBenedetti, The Peace Reform in American History (Bloomington, Ind., 1984), John W. Chambers, ed., The American Peace Movement and United States Foreign Policy, 1900–1922 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1991), C. Roland Marchand, The American Peace Movement, 1898–1918 (Princeton, N.J., 1973), and David S. Patterson, Toward a Warless World: The Travail of the American Peace Movement, 1887–1914 (Bloomington, Ind., 1976). For relations with Britain, see Bradford Perkins, The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1895–1914 (Berkeley, Calif., 1968) and William N. Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (New York, 1997). For China, see Hunt, Making of a Special Relationship, and Delber L. McKee, Chinese Exclusion Versus the Open Door Policy, 1900–1906 (Detroit, Mich., 1977). Saul's Concord and Conflict is good on the conflicts over Jewish immigration and trade, as is Gary Dean Best, To Free a People: American Jewish Leaders and the Jewish Problem in Eastern Europe, 1890–1914 (Westport, Conn., 1982). Roosevelt's role in the Russo-Japanese War is covered in Raymond A. Esthus, Double Eagle and Rising Sun: The Russians and Japanese at Portsmouth in 1905 (Durham, N.C., 1988) and Eugene P. Trani, The Treaty of Portsmouth: An Adventure in American Diplomacy (Lexington, Ky., 1969). For the expanding U.S. role in the Caribbean, see David F. Healy, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1917 (Madison, Wisc., 1988) and Richard H. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt's Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context (Baton Rouge, La., 1990). International rivalries are covered in Nancy Mitchell, The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1999) and Thomas D. Schoonover, Germany in Central America: Competing Imperialism, 1821–1929 (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1998). Walter LaFeber's Search for Opportunity and The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective (New York, 1979) are excellent. For U.S. colonial administration, see Pedro A. Cabán, Constructing a Colonial People: Puerto Rico and the United States, 1898–1932 (Boulder, Colo., 1999) and Glenn Anthony May, Social Engineering in the Philippines: The Aims, Execution, and Impact of American Colonial Policy, 1900–1913 (Westport, Conn., 1980), which finds little lasting impact from U.S. activities. Emily S. Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy, 1900–1930 (Durham, N.C., 2003) breaks new ground by analyzing the role of the ubiquitous U.S. financial advisers. Cyrus Veeser, A World Safe for Capitalism: Dollar Diplomacy and America's Rise to World Power (New York, 2002) is good on that topic.
Two excellent recent studies of the Great War by distinguished military historians are John Keegan, The First World War (New York, 2000) and Michael Howard, The First World War (London, 2003). The United States during the war period is covered in Robert H. Ferrell, Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917–1921 (New York, 1985), Ellis W. Hawley, The Great War and the Search for a Modern Order: A History of the American People and Their Institutions, 1917–1933 (2nd ed., New York, 1992), and Robert H. Zieger, America's Great War (Lanham, Md., 2000). David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York, 1980; rev. ed., 2004) focuses on the home front. Studies of Woodrow Wilson abound. Arthur Link was his authoritative biographer, and his Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1979) summarizes his major arguments on Wilson's foreign policy. Other valuable studies include Kendrick Clements, Woodrow Wilson, World Statesman (Boston, 1987) and The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (Lawrence, Kans., 1992), Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonian Statecraft: Theory and Practice of Liberal Internationalism During World War I (Wilmington, Del., 1991), a neo-realist critique, Frederick Calhoun, Power and Principle: Armed Intervention in Wilson's Foreign Policy (Kent, Ohio, 1986), which focuses on Wilson's military interventions, Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York, 1992), which provides numerous insights into his ideas and foreign policy, Lloyd C. Gardner, Safe for Democracy: The Anglo-American Response to Revolution, 1913–1923 (New York, 1987), and John A. Thompson, Woodrow Wilson (London, 2002), a balanced and thoughtful survey. Biographies of other key figures include William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Berkeley, Calif., 1980), Godfrey Hodgson, Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand: The Life of Colonel Edward M. House (New Haven, Conn., 2006), and Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (New York, 2006), a needed revision of a much maligned secretary of state. Wilson's interventions in Central America and the Caribbean are critically analyzed in Bruce J. Calder, The Impact of Intervention: The Dominican Republic During the United States Occupation of 1916–1926 (Austin, Tex., 1984), Hans Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1985), Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2001), Brenda Gayle Plummer, Haiti and the United States: The Psychological Moment (Athens, Ga., 1992), and Michael Gobat, Confronting an American Dream: Nicaragua Under U.S. Imperial Rule (Durham, N.C., 2005). Wilson's involvement with Mexico is broadly covered in Mark T. Gilderhus, Diplomacy and Revolution: U.S.-Mexican Relations Under Wilson and Carranza (Tucson, Ariz., 1977). Robert E. Quirk, An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz (Lexington, Ky., 1962) is readable and still useful. Friedrich Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Stanford, Calif., 1998) is authoritative and much broader in coverage than might appear. John Mason Hart, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico Since the Civil War (Berkeley, Calif., 2002) is a first-rate study by a leading scholar of the Mexican revolution. The United States' entry into World War I was controversial from the outset. Ernest R. May, The World War and American Isolation, 1914–1917 (Chicago, 1959), based on multi-archival research, and Ross Gregory, The Origins of American Intervention in the First World War (New York, 1971) are still valuable on U.S. involvement in the war. John W. Coogan, The End of Neutrality: The United States, Britain, and Maritime Rights, 1899–1915 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1981) takes a broader approach to neutral rights issues and is more critical of U.S. policy. Anti-war opposition is analyzed in Frances H. Early, A World Without War: How U.S. Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I (Syracuse, N.Y., 1997). The armistice is covered in Bullitt Lowry, Armistice 1918 (Kent, Ohio, 1997) and Klaus Schwabe, Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking, 1918–1919: Missionary Diplomacy and the Realities of Power, translated by Rita and Robert Kimber (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985). A readable recent study of the Versailles peacemaking is Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York, 2001). Arno J. Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy at Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918–1919 (New York, 1967) is sweeping in scope and bold in interpretation. Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (New York, 2007) skillfully analyzes the reactions of oppressed people worldwide to Wilson's diplomacy. The problem of Bolshevik Russia at the peace conference is discussed in N. Gordon Levin Jr., Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution (New York, 1968). The interventions in North Russia and Siberia are covered in Betty Miller Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition: A Study of National Policy (Durham, N.C., 1959) and David Fogelsong, America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996). David W. McFadden, Alternative Paths: Soviets and Americans, 1917–1920 (New York, 1992) deals with official and informal contacts during these years. Unterberger's The United States, Revolutionary Russia, and the Rise of Czechoslovakia (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1989) provides a valuable case study of the application of self-determination. Wilson's 1919–20 defeat is analyzed from various perspectives in Ralph Stone, The Irreconcilables: The Fight Against the League of Nations (Lexington, Ky., 1970), Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective (New York, 1987), and Herbert F. Marguiles, The Mild Reservationists and the League of Nations Controversy in the Senate (Columbia, Mo., 1989). An authoritative recent study is John M. Cooper Jr., Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (New York, 2001).
1921–1941: Selig Adler, The Uncertain Giant: 1921–1941: American Foreign Policy Between the Wars (New York, 1965) reflects the traditional view of an isolationist America rejecting global responsibilities. A more recent overview, Warren I. Cohen, Empire Without Tears: America's Foreign Relations, 1921–1933 (New York, 1987) emphasizes the variety and extent of U.S. involvement in world affairs. Akira Iriye, The Globalizing of America, 1913–1945 (New York, 1993) is an important study by a leading diplomatic historian. Joan Hoff Wilson, American Business and Foreign Policy, 1921–1933 (Lexington, Ky., 1971) highlights a vital element of 1920s internationalism. For the presidential administrations, see Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson, The Presidency of Warren G. Harding (Lawrence, Kans., 1977) and Robert H. Ferrell, The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge (Lawrence, Kans., 1998) and American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy (New York, 1970). There are no up-to-date biographies of Charles Evans Hughes or Frank Kellogg. Waldo H. Heinrichs, American Ambassador: Joseph C. Grew and the United States Diplomatic Tradition (Boston, 1966) is especially good on foreign service and consular reform in the 1920s. David Schmitz, Henry L. Stimson: The First Wise Man (Wilmington, Del., 2001) and Jeffrey J. Matthews, Alanson B. Houghton: Ambassador of the New Era (Wilmington, Del., 2004) are first-rate short biographies of important figures. Robert D. Schulzinger, The Wise Men of Foreign Affairs: The History of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York, 1984) and Robert David Johnson, The Peace Progressives and American Foreign Relations (Cambridge, Mass., 1995) illustrate the varieties of 1920s internationalism. Three classic studies of U.S. involvement with European issues are Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion: American Political, Economic, and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919–1933 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), Michael J. Hogan, Informal Entente: The Private Structure of Cooperation in Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy, 1918–1928 (2nd ed., Chicago, 1991), and Melvyn P. Leffler, The Elusive Quest: America's Pursuit of European Stability and French Security, 1919–1933 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979). Neal Pease, Poland, the United States, and the Stabilization of Europe, 1919–1933 (New York, 1986) and Linda R. Killen, Testing the Peripheries: U.S.-Yugoslav Economic Relations in the Interwar Years (New York, 1994) are good on Eastern Europe. For the Washington Conference and disarmament, see Thomas H. Buckley, The United States and the Washington Conference (Knoxville, Tenn., 1970), Roger Dingman, Power in the Pacific: The Origins of Naval Arms Limitation, 1914–1922 (Chicago, 1976), Stephen E. Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failure of the Second London Naval Conference and the Onset of World War II (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), and Richard W. Fanning, Peace and Disarmament: Naval Rivalry and Arms Control, 1922–1933 (Lexington, Ky., 1995). For the peace movement, see Charles Chatfield, For Peace and Justice: Pacifism in America, 1914–1941 (Knoxville, Tenn., 1971), Charles DeBenedetti, Origins of the Modern American Peace Movement, 1915–1929 (Millwood, N.Y., 1978), and Robert H. Ferrell, Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (New Haven, Conn., 1952). Joseph H. Tulchin, The Aftermath of War: World War I and U.S. Policy Toward Latin America (New York, 1971) traces changes in Latin America policy during the early 1920s. Thomas F. O'Brien, The Revolutionary Mission: American Enterprise in Latin America, 1900–1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1996) and Michael L. Krenn, U.S. Policy Toward Economic Nationalism in Latin America, 1917–1929 (Wilmington, Del., 1994) analyze the emerging conflict between U.S. economic expansion and revolutionary nationalism. Lester D. Langley, The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900–1934 (Lexington, Ky., 1983) has a chapter on Sandino and Nicaragua. Neill Macaulay, The Sandino Affair (Chicago, 1967) chronicles the guerrilla leader's resistance to the United States.
Good surveys of pre–World War U.S. policies are Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II (2nd ed., New York, 1979), Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1991), and especially David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt's America and the Origins of the Second World War (Chicago, 2001), which breaks new ground in discussing the beginnings of national security policy. William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (New York, 1963) focuses on domestic affairs but gives ample attention to foreign policy. David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War (New York, 1999), a prizewinning study, also gives extensive coverage to foreign policy. Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (New York, 1979) is the most comprehensive account. Frederick W. Marks III, Wind over Sand: The Diplomacy of Franklin Roosevelt (Athens, Ga., 1988) is highly critical. Robert Sherwood's classic Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (rev. ed., New York, 1950) is still valuable. Irwin F. Gellman, Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles (New York, 2002) gives full coverage to the feud and its impact on policies. Robert S. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941 (New York, 1984) and Charles P. Kindelberger, The World in Depression: 1929–1939 (Berkeley, Calif., 1986) are excellent on the depression, the latter especially on its international aspects. Christopher G. Thorne, The Limits of Foreign Policy: The West, the League, and the Far Eastern Crisis, 1931–1933 (New York, 1973) is the standard account. Justus D. Doenecke, When the Wicked Rise: American Opinion-Makers and the Manchuria Crisis of 1931–1933 (Cranbury, N.J., 1984) analyzes the U.S. response. FDR's Good Neighbor policy is studied in Bryce Wood, The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy (New York, 1961), Irwin F. Gellman, Good Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 1933–1945 (Baltimore, Md., 1979), and Frederick B. Pike, FDR's Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Years of Generally Gentle Chaos (Austin, Tex., 1995). Eric Paul Roorda, The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930–1945 (Durham, N.C., 1998) highlights the downside of good neighborism. Recognition of the Soviet Union is covered in Normal E. Saul, Friends or Foes? The United States and Soviet Russia (Lawrence, Kans., 2006) and David Mayers, The Ambassadors and American Soviet Policy (New York, 1995). Edward M. Bennett's Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Search for Security: American-Soviet Relations, 1933–1939 (Wilmington, Del., 1985) is still useful. For 1930s isolationism and neutrality policies, see Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1966), Warren I. Cohen, The American Revisionists: The Lessons of Intervention in World War I (Chicago, 1967), and Robert A. Divine, The Illusion of Neutrality (Chicago, 1962). An important aspect of the peace movement is analyzed in Linda K. Schott, Reconstructing Women's Thoughts: The International League for Peace and Freedom Before World War II (Stanford, Calif., 1997) and Carrie Foster, The Women, the Warriors: The United States Section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915–1946 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1995). Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996) charts the rise of African American interest in foreign policy issues. Anglo-American relations are well covered in David Reynolds, Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937–1941 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982) and B.J.C. McKercher, Transition of Power: Britain's Loss of Global Preeminence to the United States, 1930–1945 (New York, 1999). Douglas Little, Malevolent Neutrality (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985) is good on the Spanish Civil War. Barbara Rearden Farnham, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis: A Study of Political Decisionmaking (Princeton, N.J., 1997) sheds new light on that most memorable of crises. Jeffrey Record, The Specter of Munich: Reconsidering the Lessons of Appeasing Hitler (Dulles, Va., 2006) evaluates its lingering effects. Marvin Zahniser, Then Came Disaster: France and the United States (Westport, Conn., 2002) looks at the impact of the fall of France. Warren F. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-Lease, 1941 (Baltimore, Md., 1969) is the standard work on that critical legislation. T. Christopher Jespersen, American Images of China, 1931–1949 (Stanford, Calif., 1996) provides a valuable context for U.S.-East Asian policies. The best study of the road to war in Asia is Akira Iriye, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (New York, 1987). Waldo Heinrichs, Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II (New York, 1988) shows the connections between events in Europe and Asia and portrays the war much as FDR must have seen it. Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939–1941 (Lanham, Md., 2000) seeks to rehabilitate the anti-interventionists, and Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War Against Nazi Germany (New York, 2001) is an up-to-date analysis of that important subject. The definitive study of the Pearl Harbor debacle is Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (New York, 1981). Emily S. Rosenberg, A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory (Durham, N.C., 2003) looks at its longer-term effects.
1941–1961: Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (New York, 1994) is an extraordinary international history. Gaddis Smith, American Diplomacy During the Second World War (2nd. ed., New York, 1985) is a good introduction. Lloyd C. Gardner, Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy (Madison, Wisc., 1964) was one of the first books to treat U.S. wartime diplomacy on a global basis. Warren F. Kimball's The Juggler: Franklin D. Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, N.J., 1991) and Forged in War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Second World War (New York, 1997) are indispensable for Big Three diplomacy. James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York, 1970) is readable and still valuable. John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York, 1972) analyzes those wartime issues that produced the Cold War. Lloyd C. Gardner, Spheres of Influence: The Great Powers Partition Europe from Munich to Yalta (Chicago, 1993) is excellent on those issues that most divided the Grand Alliance. Mark A. Stoler, Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000) is also good on Anglo-American relations, especially as they pertain to military strategy. The divisive issue of colonialism is covered in Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan (New York, 1978) and Wm. Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941–1945 (New York, 1978). Randall Woods, A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941–1946 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1990) stresses economic issues. For U.S. relations with Stalin and the USSR, Vojtech Mastny, Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941–1945 (New York, 1979) and William Taubman, Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold War (New York, 1982) are essential. For China, see Michael Schaller, The U.S. Crusade in China, 1938–1945 (New York, 1979) and the colorful Barbara Tuchman, Stillwell and the American Experience in China (New York, 1970). Kenton J. Clymer, Quest for Freedom: The United States and India's Independence (New York, 1995) and Mark Lytle, The Origins of the Iranian-American Alliance, 1941–1953 (New York, 1987) cover two important wartime topics. As the title suggests, David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945 (New York, 1998) is highly critical of the United States. Henry L. Feingold, Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust (Syracuse, N.Y., 1995) is important. For the founding of the United Nations organization, see Robert A. Divine, Second Chance: The Triumph of Internationalism in America During World War II (New York, 1967), Robert C. Hilderbrand, Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1990), and Stephen C. Schlesinger, Act of Creation (New York, 2003). John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York, 1986) is superb on American and Japanese perceptions of each other. Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1981) offers a very different interpretation. Few issues in U.S. history have been more controversial than the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945. A good brief introduction is J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2004). One of the major revisionist works is Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy—Hiroshima and Potsdam: The Use of the Atomic Bomb and the Confrontation with U.S. Power (rev. ed., New York, 1985). Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York, 1977) is still valuable. Two major recent studies are Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Japanese Empire (New York, 1999) and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, Mass., 2005).
The Truman years mark a revolutionary period in U.S. foreign policy, and the writing on them has been voluminous. Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York, 1999) and Robert L. Beisner, Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War (New York, 2006) are the best biographies of two key figures. James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World (New York, 1998) and Mark A. Stoler, George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century (Boston, 1989) are also very good. Acheson's memoir, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York, 1969) is a classic, as is George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950 (New York, 1967). Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York, 1991) is especially valuable for connections between domestic and foreign policy. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (New York, 1986) is excellent on Truman's key advisers. Lloyd C. Gardner, Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1941–1949 (Chicago, 1970) is insightful for lesser figures as well. Valuable general studies of the Cold War reflecting different points of view include Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2005 (rev. ed., New York, 2008), Thomas G. Paterson, On Every Front: The Making and Unmaking of the Cold War (2nd ed., New York, 1992), which focuses on the Truman years, John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York, 2005), and Thomas J. McCormick, America's Half Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore, Md., 1989). Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, Mass., 1996) is valuable for the Soviet side. Two superb up-to-date analyses of the Truman policies setting forth different interpretations are Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, Calif., 1992) and the more critical Arnold A. Offner, Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945–1953 (Stanford, Calif., 2000). Robert L. Messer, The End of Alliance: James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt, Truman, and the Origins of the Cold War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982) is good for the immediate postwar period, Thomas G. Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation: Postwar Reconstruction and the Origins of the Cold War (Baltimore, Md., 1973) on economic issues. Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954 (New York, 1998) is essential. Important monographs on the reconstruction of Europe include Howard Jones, "A New Kind of War": America's Global Strategy and the Civil War in Greece (New York, 1989) and Lawrence S. Wittner, American Intervention in Greece (New York, 1982), which offer contrasting views on implementation of the Truman Doctrine, Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (New York, 1987), Irwin W. Wall, The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945–1954 (New York, 1991), William I. Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998), Brian Angus McKenzie, Remaking France: Americanization, Public Diplomacy, and the Marshall Plan (New York, 2005), James Edward Miller, The United States and Italy, 1940–1950: The Politics and Diplomacy of Stabilization (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1986), John Lamberton Harper, America and the Reconstruction of Italy, 1945–1948 (New York, 1986), Carolyn Woods Eisenberg, Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany (New York, 1996), and Thomas Alan Schwartz, America's Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, Mass., 1991). Richard Pells, Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture Since World War II (New York, 1997) looks at cultural interchange. Thomas Borstelmann, Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War Years (New York, 1993), Peter L. Hahn, Caught in the Middle East: U.S. Policy Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1945–1961 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2004), and Robert J. McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945–1949 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1981) make clear the global impact of the Cold War. Mark Philip Bradley, Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam, 1919–1950 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000) is an excellent cross-cultural analysis. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Patterns in the Dust (New York, 1983) covers U.S. domestic reaction to the fall of China. John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York, 1999) is superb on the occupation of Japan. Gregg Herken, Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945–1950 (New York, 1980) and David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (New Haven, Conn., 1994) discuss the origins of the nuclear arms race from U.S. and Soviet perspectives. Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York, 2005) is superb. A good survey of the Korean War is Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command (New York, 1986). William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton, N.J., 1995) is more detailed and broader in perspective. Peter Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War ( 2nd ed., New York, 1997) and Allan R. Millett, The War for Korea, 1945–1950: A House Burning (Lawrence, Kans., 2005) are excellent on the beginnings. Bruce Cumings's The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945–1947 (Princeton, N.J., 1981) and The Origins of the Korean War: The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947–1950 (Princeton, N.J., 1990) are richly detailed and outspokenly revisionist. Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York, 1994) and Rosemary Foot, The Wrong War: American Policy and the Dimensions of the Korean Conflict, 1950–1953 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985) and A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990) are most valuable.
An excellent overview of the postwar era with chapters on the Eisenhower years is James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1975 (New York, 1996). Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War (2nd ed., Baltimore, Md., 1996) is also important for the domestic context. There is no up-to-date biography of Eisenhower. Chester J. Pach, The Presidency of Dwight Eisenhower (Lawrence, Kans., 1991) is an able survey. An early example of Eisenhower revisionism, Robert A. Divine, Eisenhower and the Cold War (New York, 1981) finds much to praise. Fred Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (New York, 1982) is another influential work of revisionism by a political scientist. Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy (New York, 1998) discusses the way policy was formulated as well as the policies. Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles (Boston, 1973) is highly critical of its subject; Frederick W. Marks III, Power and Peace: The Diplomacy of John Foster Dulles (Westport, Conn., 1993), quite positive. Richard H. Immerman, John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (Wilmington, Del., 1999) strikes a persuasive balance. Peter A. Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston, 1994) is a readable biography of the spymaster. H. W. Brands, Cold Warriors: Eisenhower's Generation and American Foreign Policy (New York, 1988) examines lesser but still important figures. Eisenhower's antagonist is capably analyzed in William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York, 2003) and Alexander Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York, 2006). Propaganda formed an important part of the Eisenhower policies. Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961 (New York, 1997) is an important overview. Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battles at Home and Abroad (Lawrence, Kans., 2006) is exhaustively researched and comprehensive in coverage. Reinhold Wagnleitner, Coca-Colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria After the Second World War (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1994) is a valuable study of an individual country. See also Penny von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz, Race, and Empire During the Cold War (Cambridge, Mass., 2005). For the Soviet invasion of Budapest, see Erich Lessing, Revolution in Hungary: The 1956 Budapest Uprising (London, 2006) and Victor Sebestyen, Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (New York, 2006). Important regional and country studies include Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Peace Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton, N.J., 1999), Hahn, Caught in the Middle East, Michelle Mart, Eye on Israel: How America Came to View Israel as an Ally (Albany, N.Y., 2006), Nathan J. Citino, From Arab Nationalism to OPEC (Bloomington, Ind., 2002), Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1991), Wm. Roger Louis, Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization (London, 2007), and Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2004) for the Middle East. On Iran, see Mary Ann Heiss, Empire and Nationhood: The United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil, 1950–1954 (New York, 1997). For South Asia, see Robert J. McMahon, The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan (New York, 1994), Andrew J. Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947–1964 (Ithaca, N.Y., 2000), a stimulating cultural approach, and Dennis Merrill, Bread and the Ballot: The United States and India's Economic Development, 1947–1963 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1990). See also Nick Cullather, Illusions of Influence: The Political Economy of United States-Philippine Relations, 1942–1969 (Stanford, Calif., 1994). Among the most valuable studies of early U.S. involvement in Vietnam are Lloyd C. Gardner, Approaching Vietnam: From World War II to Dienbienphu (New York, 1988), David L. Anderson, Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam (New York, 1991), Kathryn Statler, Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam (Lexington, Ky., 2007), and Mark Atwood Lawrence, Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam (Berkeley, Calif., 2005). Stephen G. Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1988) is a fine overview. For the Guatemalan coup, see Richard H. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin, Tex., 1982), Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton, N.J., 1991), and Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954 (Stanford, Calif., 1999). Kyle Longley, The Sparrow and the Hawk: Costa Rica and the United States During the Rise of José Figueres (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1997) is a valuable account of a unique relationship. Thomas G. Paterson, Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution (New York, 1994) is excellent on this important topic. Civil rights and foreign relations became intricately connected during the postwar years. Carol Anderson, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Civil Rights, 1944–1955 (New York, 2003), Penny M. Von Eschen, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anti-Colonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1997), Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, N.J., 2000), and Michael Krenn, Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945–1969 (Armonk, N.Y., 1999) shed much light on this important topic.
1961–1981: David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York, 1972) captures better than anything else the ethos of the 1960s. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (New York, 2003) is up to date and sympathetic. James M. Giglio, The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (rev. ed., Lawrence, Kans., 2006) is good on domestic and foreign policy. Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara (Boston, 1992) is useful for an influential member of JFK's foreign policy "team." Warren I. Cohen, Dean Rusk (Totowa, N.J., 1980) and Thomas Zeiler, Dean Rusk: Defending the American Mission Abroad (Wilmington, Del., 2000) are valuable for his secretary of state. Michael Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1961–1963 (New York, 1991) is a good early analysis of Cold War issues. Thomas G. Paterson, ed., Kennedy's Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961–1963 (New York, 1989) contains essays dealing with the full range of foreign policy issues and is critical of the administration's aggressiveness. Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (New York, 2000) is excellent on these major crises. Valuable studies of specific topics include Howard Jones, The Bay of Pigs (New York, 2008), Jack M. Schick, The Berlin Crisis, 1958–1962 (Philadelphia, 1971), Robert M. Slusser, The Berlin Crisis of 1961: Soviet-American Relations and the Struggle for Power in the Kremlin, June-November 1961 (Baltimore, Md., 1973), especially good on Soviet policy, Warren Bass, Support Any Friend: Kennedy's Middle East Policy (New York, 2003), which emphasizes the origins of the U.S.-Israel alliance, Stephen G. Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area of the World: John F. Kennedy Contains Communist Revolution in Latin America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1999) and U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2005), Frank A. Mayer, Adenauer and Kennedy: A Study in German-American Relations, 1961–1963 (New York, 1996), and Gordon H. Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948–1972 (Stanford, Calif., 1990). Economic issues are discussed in Diane B. Kunz, Butter and Guns: America's Cold War Economic Diplomacy (New York, 1997), Thomas W. Zeiler, American Trade and Power in the 1960s (New York, 1992), and Francis J. Gavin, Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958–1971 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2004). Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass., 1998) is excellent, and Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and "Nation Building" in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000), is an important monograph on a major subject. The Cuban missile crisis is among the most analyzed events in U.S. history. Robert F. Kennedy's posthumously published memoir, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York, 1969) conveys the mood. Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (rev. ed., Boston, 1999) is a classic analysis. Mark J. White, The Cuban Missile Crisis (Basingstoke, Eng., 1996), is critical of JFK. Alexansdr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, "One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York, 1997) is an up-to-date account using Soviet sources. Vietnam was the last crisis of JFK's short tenure, and his policies and intentions have provoked great controversy. Andrew Preston, The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam (Cambridge, Mass., 2006) is a recent study. Freedman, Kennedy's Wars and Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and Escalation of the War in Vietnam (Berkeley, Calif., 1999) argue convincingly that JFK might have sought a solution other than military escalation.
A dynamic and fascinating personality, Lyndon Johnson has been the subject of excellent recent biographies by Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York, 1998) and Randall B. Woods, Lyndon Johnson: Architect of American Ambition (New York, 2006), which gets closer to the real LBJ. Johnson's tape recordings of his telephone conversations provide rich insights into his character and policies. The early recordings are selectively transcribed in Michael Beschloss, ed., Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (New York, 1997) and Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965 (New York, 2001). Monographic literature on LBJ's foreign policy is just beginning to appear. Collections of scholarly essays dealing with important topics include Robert A. Divine, ed., Exploring the Johnson Years (Austin, Tex., 1981), The Johnson Years: Vietnam, the Environment, and Science (Lawrence, Kans., 1987), and The Johnson Years: LBJ at Home and Abroad (Lawrence, Kans., 1994) and Mitchell B. Lerner, ed., Looking Back at LBJ: White House Politics in a New Light (Lawrence, Kans., 2005). Other useful volumes dealing with LBJ's foreign policy are Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, eds., Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World, 1963–1968 (New York, 1994), Diane B. Kunz, ed., The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations During the 1960s (New York, 1994), and H. W. Brands, The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power (New York, 1995). Among the few up-to-date scholarly monographs are Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, Mass., 2003) and Mitchell Lerner, The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (Lawrence, Kans., 2002), both of which give LBJ high marks for handling difficult situations. Carole Fink, Phillip Gassert, and Detlef Junker, eds., 1968: The World Transformed (New York, 1998) is invaluable for the multiplicity of global happenings in that still quite unbelievable year. Three introductions to the Vietnam War are George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (New York, 2002), Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1991 (New York, 1991), and A. J. Langguth, Our Vietnam: The War, 1954–1975 (New York, 2000). The best treatment of LBJ's escalation is Logevall's Choosing War, which categorically rejects the notion that he had no choice but to act as he did. George C. Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War (Austin, Tex., 1994) and Lloyd C. Gardner, Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam (Chicago, 1995) analyze Johnson's conduct of the war from different perspectives. Randall B. Woods, Fulbright (New York, 1995) and Kyle Longley, Senator Albert Gore, Sr. (Baton Rouge, La., 2004) are up-to-date biographies of leading "doves."
Tidbits from the Nixon and Kissinger papers have leaked out in recent years, and the trickle now seems to be surging into a flood. A source-based scholarly literature should not be far behind. In the meantime, it is necessary to rely largely on memoirs and those documents that have been declassified. Nixon's and Kissinger's memoirs are better than those of most top officials; Kissinger's breaks all records for size. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York, 1978) naturally defends a discredited president's policies but is also useful for diary entries and other revelations. White House Years (Boston, 1979) and Years of Upheaval (Boston, 1982) cover the Nixon period. They are rich in detail and especially noteworthy for candid and perceptive sketches of those people Kissinger worked with—and against. They are also staunchly defensive. There is no good up-to-date biography of Nixon. By contrast, Kissinger studies abound. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York, 1992) is detailed and readable. Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York, 2004) is thorough and based on some new documentation. Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (New York, 2007) is a valuable recent contribution. Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York, 2007) is excellent, as is Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence, Kans., 1999), which covers domestic and foreign policy. William P. Bundy, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (New York, 1998) is a critical study by a former Kennedy/Johnson administration official. Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York, 1994) praises Nixon's domestic policies and blames Kissinger for foreign policy failures. Raymond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, 1985) is thorough and indispensable for studying one of the administration's major achievements. Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge, Mass., 2003) places detente in the context of the worldwide upheavals of the 1960s. Also useful are John Newhouse, Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT (New York, 1973), a fine contemporary account by a journalist, Keith L. Nelson, The Making of Détente: Soviet-American Relations in the Shadow of Vietnam (Baltimore, Md., 1995), and for a Soviet perspective Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York, 1993), a memoir by the longtime Cold War ambassador to Washington. For China, James Mann, About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China from Nixon to Clinton (New York, 1999) is valuable, as is Margaret Macmillan, Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (New York, 2007). Abraham Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter that Transformed the Middle East (New York, 2004) is an up-to-date account. Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War (Lawrence, Kans., 1998) is the best study of that topic. Kimball's The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy (Lawrence, Kans., 2004) fills out parts of the story from recently declassified documentation. Larry Berman, Vietnam: No Peace, No Honor (New York, 2001) and Pierre Asselin, A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement (New York, 2002) are scholarly analyses of the flawed peace-making.
Scholarship on the Ford administration remains scant. A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford (New York, 1979) and James Cannon, Time and Chance: Gerald Ford's Appointment with History (New York, 1994) are useful, as is Kissinger's Years of Renewal (New York, 1999). John R. Greene, The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (Lawrence, Kans., 1995) and Yanek Mieczkowski, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s (Lexington, Ky., 2005) treat Ford sympathetically. Robert David Johnson, Congress and the Cold War (New York, 2006) and Thomas Franck and Edward Wiesband, Foreign Policy by Congress (New York, 1979) deal with the congressional resurgence of the 1970s. Robert D. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics (Seattle, 2000) portrays positively one of the leaders of the congressional rebellion. Garthoff's Détente and Confrontation is good on the breakdown of detente under Ford and Carter.
The Carter literature is similarly slim. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York, 1982), Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in American Foreign Policy (New York, 1983), and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York, 1985) are basic sources. Andrew J. DeRoche, Andrew Young: Civil Rights Ambassador (Wilmington, Del., 2003) is a useful biography of an important figure. Burton I. Kaufman and Scott Kaufman, The Presidency of James Earl Carter (2nd ed., Lawrence, Kans., 2006) covers the entire administration and is excellent on foreign policy. Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years (New York, 1986) is an early and still-useful attempt to make sense of the Carter foreign policy. The breakdown of detente and revivification of the Cold War are analyzed in Garthoff's Détente and Confrontation and Odd Arne Westad, ed., The Fall of Détente: Soviet-American Relations During the Carter Years (Boston, 1995). Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002) uses Cuban sources to provide a persuasive revisionist account of conflicts in Angola and elsewhere. For the all-important issue of human rights, see Joshua Murachik, The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the Dilemmas of Human Rights (New York, 1980) and Sandy Vogelgesang, American Dream, Global Nightmare: The Dilemma of Human Rights Policy (New York, 1980). William Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (rev. ed., Berkeley, Calif., 2001), by a participant, is valuable for Camp David and its breakdown. The Iranian crisis is well covered in John D. Stempel, Inside the Iranian Revolution (Bloomington, Ind., 1981) and Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York, 2004). Its domestic impact is thoughtfully analyzed in David Farber, Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam (Princeton, N.J., 2005).
1981–2008: There is virtually no scholarly literature on the Reagan era. An American Life: Ronald Reagan, The Autobiography (New York, 1990) is bland and unrevealing, Douglas Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries (New York, 2007) much more insightful. Alexander M. Haig Jr., Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (New York, 1984) vigorously defends the author's controversial role. George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York, 1993) is very detailed and useful on numerous issues. Richard Pipes, Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger (New Haven, Conn., 2004) reveals the mood of Reagan's hard-line National Security Council. Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York, 1991) highlights Reagan's pragmatism. Garry Wills, Reagan's America: Innocents at Home (New York, 1987) is especially good on the pre-presidential career. Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War—The Epic Story of his Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph over Communism (New York, 2003), as the title suggests, is a zealous affirmation of post–Cold War triumphalism. Kyle Longley et al., Deconstructing Reagan: Conservative Mythology and America's Fortieth President (Armonk, N.Y., 2007) offers a strong rebuttal from scholars writing on foreign policy and domestic issues. John Ehrman, The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan (New Haven, Conn., 2005) is excellent on the domestic backdrop and Geoffrey Smith, Reagan and Thatcher (New York, 1991) on that special relationship. On Soviet-American relations, Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation is good on the first term and the sequel, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, 1994), on the second and beyond. Don Oberdorfer, From the Cold War to a New Era: The United States and the End of the Soviet Union, 1983–1991 (New York, 1996) is a perceptive and readable account by a distinguished journalist. Richard Herrmann and Richard Ned Lebow, eds., Ending the Cold War (New York, 2004) contains excellent essays by leading international relations specialists on the end of the Cold War. Michael J. Hogan, ed., The End of the Cold War: Its Meanings and Implications (New York, 1992) is an early effort to explore the significance of that climactic event. Strobe Talbott, Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control (New York, 1984) is still useful for the first-term deadlock. Frances FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War (New York, 2000) tells the story of that most contentious issue in Soviet-American relations. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998) is richly detailed and invaluable. Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (rev. ed., New York, 1984) is indispensable for the roots of the 1980s crisis. James M. Scott, Deciding to Intervene: The Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy (Durham, N.C., 1996) is a useful early study. Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987 (New York, 1987) is entertaining and sometimes revealing but should be used with caution. Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991 (Princeton, N.J., 1993) is a good early history of the first Gulf War. Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, The Generals' War (Boston, 1995) is an excellent military history.
George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed: The Collapse of the Soviet Empire, the Unification of Germany, Tiananmen Square, the Gulf War (New York, 1998) is an informative and quite remarkable joint memoir that reveals much about the working relationship of the authors. James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York, 1995) fills in those stories and others from the perspective of the secretary of state. The George H. W. Bush administration is competently chronicled in John Robert Greene, The Presidency of George Bush (Lawrence, Kans., 2000).
David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace (New York, 2001) is insightful on policymaking in the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, especially on the question of humanitarian interventions. David Rothkopf, Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (New York, 2004) is particularly good on the Clinton administration, in which he served. Colin Powell with Joseph Persico, My American Journey (New York, 1995), Bill Clinton, My Life (New York, 2004), Warren Christopher, Chances of a Lifetime (New York, 2001), and Madeleine Albright, Madame Secretary (New York, 2003) provide useful detail.
James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans (New York, 2004) is essential for the mindset and rivalries among those who took power in the George W. Bush administration. Glenn Kessler, The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy (New York, 2007), and Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: A Biography (New York, 2008), biographies by journalists, are valuable for Bush's national security adviser and secretary of state. Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in American Foreign Policy (Washington, 2003) is an early assessment of a controversial presidency. Robert Jervis, American Foreign Policy in a New Era (New York, 2005) is critical of the so-called Bush Doctrine. Robert Draper, Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush (New York, 2007) is an early attempt to assess a controversial presidency. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York, 1996) anticipates the major conflict of the early twenty-first century. Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York, 2006) helps understand an enigmatic enemy. Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies (New York, 2004) recounts the outspoken author's only partially successful efforts to engage the government on terrorism. Bob Woodward's trilogy, Bush at War (New York, 2003), Plan of Attack (New York, 2004), and State of Denial (New York, 2006) contains inside information and becomes increasingly critical of the Bush administration. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York, 2004) covers the early years of the war in Afghanistan. The run-up to war in Iraq and the flimsy case it was built on are detailed in Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York, 2006) and from Powell's viewpoint in Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell (New York, 2006). Excellent early accounts of the Iraq War are Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: America's Military Adventure in Iraq (New York, 2006), Bernard E. Trainor and Michael R. Gordon, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion of Iraq (New York, 2006), and George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (New York, 2005). An important work by an Iraqi political official is Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (New Haven, Conn., 2007). Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York, 2004) investigates the background of Abu Ghraib.