1. "To Begin the World Over Again": Foreign Policy and the Birth of the Republic, 1776–1788
2. "None Who Can Make Us Afraid": The New Republic in a Hostile World, 1789–1801
3. "Purified, as by Fire": Republicanism Imperiled and Reaffirmed, 1801–1815
4. "Leave the Rest to Us": The Assertive Republic, 1815–1837
5. A Dose of Arsenic: Slavery, Expansion, and the Road to Disunion, 1837–1861
6. "Last Best Hope": The Union, the Confederacy, and Civil War Diplomacy, 1861–1877
7. "A Good Enough England": Foreign Relations in the Gilded Age, 1877–1893
8. The War of 1898, the New Empire, and the Dawn of the American Century, 1893–1901
9. "Bursting with Good Intentions": The United States in World Affairs, 1901–1913
10. "A New Age": Wilson, the Great War, and the Quest for a New World Order, 1913–1921
11. Involvement Without Commitment, 1921–1931
12. The Great Transformation: Depression, Isolationism, and War, 1931–1941
13. "Five Continents and Seven Seas": World War II and the Rise of American Globalism, 1941–1945
14. "A Novel Burden Far from Our Shores": Truman, the Cold War, and the Revolution in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1945–1953
15. Coexistence and Crises, 1953–1961
16. Gulliver's Troubles: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Limits of Power, 1961–1968
17. Nixon, Kissinger, and the End of the Postwar Era, 1969–1974
18. Foreign Policy in an Age of Dissonance, 1974–1981
19. "A Unique and Extraordinary Moment": Gorbachev, Reagan, Bush, and the End of the Cold War, 1981–1991
20. "The Strength of a Giant": America as Hyperpower, 1992–2007