The United States is the most powerful player on the international scene today, and is unlikely to relinquish that position any time soon. Understanding how and why this condition arose, and what it means for world affairs today, is our concern in this course. The emphasis is on U.S. policymaking over the past century, with due attention to the international and domestic political context in which decisions were made. Issues to be explored include the tension between isolationism and interventionism and between unilateralism and multilateralism; the emergence of the U.S. as a...