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Late historian Martin J. Sklar's analysis of how modernizing worldwide development has been the focus of US foreign policy.
List of contents
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.
About the author
Martin J. Skar (1935–2014) was an American historian best known for originating the concepts of corporate liberalism, the disaccumulation of capital, and the capitalist-socialist mix. His books include The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890–1916: The Market, the Law and Politics (Cambridge, 1988) and The United States as a Developing Country: Studies in U.S. History in the Progressive Era and the 1920s (Cambridge, 1992). Sklar was the founding editor of several journals and a former Professor of History at Bucknell University.
Summary
This book examines the thinking of early twentieth-century US foreign policy makers and their advisors, including business leaders and economists - a group the late Martin J. Sklar calls the 'founders of US foreign policy' - and demonstrates how their concern with worldwide modernization and development shaped the 'American Century' and is represented in conflicts today.
