'In this provocative book, the late Martin J. Sklar urges us to put aside the simplistic debates over unilateral versus multilateral, realist versus idealist, isolationist versus globalist, and to recover the more subtle understandings of the 'founders' of US foreign policy who emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Far from a nation with a short-term memory, America, in Sklar's telling, pursued a consistent policy that at first sought a dominant world position so as to bring about decolonization and, later, a world without a dominant hegemon. Creating the American Century will challenge students of American foreign policy and those who wish to understand the US's role in the world today.' John Yoo, University of California, Berkeley
Preface; Part I. Origins: 1. The Philippines, China, and US global objects (the conant factor); 2. A panel at the AEA; Part II. THE FOUNDERS' AMERICAN CENTURY: THE TALE ONCE-Told: 3. World history: evolving cycles of empires; 4. US history: in the evolving cycle; 5. 20th-Century world politics and the US role: moving beyond the cycle to universal evolution; Part III. HISTORY'S AMERICAN CENTURY: THE TALE TWICE-Told: 6. 1898 to 1941: American century-birth and awkward youth; 7. World War and Cold War: American century – young adulthood; 8. Post-Cold War and 9/11: American century arrived; 9. American century fulfilled and revoked, or nullified: from empires to a universal humanity? Or, cycles forever?; Part IV. Bringing History Back In: 10. History in the US, the US in history.