Foreign Policy (American)

Last update: 21 Apr 2025 21:17
First version:

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See also: the Cold War; Empires and Imperialism; Globalization; Terrorism; War

Recommended (very, very, very misc.):
• Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon
• Stephen S. Cohen and J. Bradford DeLong, The End of Infleunce: What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money
• Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore, "The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks", Foreign Affairs Nov.-Dec. 2013
• Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East
• Noel Maurer and Carlos Yu, The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal
• Thomas Oatley, A Political Economy of American Hegemony: Buildups, Booms, and Busts
• Eric Rachway, Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America
• Adam Tooze
  • Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
  • The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916--1931
• Matthew Yglesias, Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats

To read:
• Andrew J. Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy
• Lea Brilmayer, American Hegemony: Political Morality in a One-Superpower World
• Alexander Cooley, Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas
• Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy
• David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order
• P. Edward Haley, Strategies of Dominance: The Misdirection of U.S. Foreign Policy
• Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order
• Stanley Hoffmann, Gulliver Unbound: The Imperial Temptation and the War in Iraq
• G. John Ikenberry
  • Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition: Essays on American Power and International Order
  • Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order
• John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe
• Melvyn P. Leffler, Safeguarding Democratic Capitalism: U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security, 1920-2015
• Michael C. Mann, Incoherent Empire
• Alex Mintz and Carly Wayne, The Polythink Syndrome: U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions on 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and ISIS
• Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
  • Bound to Lead
  • The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone
• William E. Odom and Robert Dujarric, America's Inadvertant Empire
• Benjamin I. Page and Marshall M. Bouton, The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don't Get
• Dana Priest, The Mission
• Christian Reus-Smit, American Power and World Order
• David F. Schmitz, Thank God They're on Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921--1965
• Douglas T. Stuart, Creating the National Security State: A History of the Law That Transformed America
• Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916--1931
• Peter Trubowitz, Defining the National Interest: Conflict and Change in American Foreign Policy [This would seem to seriously address what seems to me the obvious problem with the "realist" theory of international relations (and many similar doctrines): people are often open to persuasion about what their interests are, never mind large organizations like states...]
• Robert Vitalis, Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy [Review by Paul Musgrave in Political Science Quarterly]