Jeffrey A. Engel - America in the World: A History in Documents from the War with Spain to the War on Terror

America in the World

AMERICA IN THE WORLD

SVEN BECKERT AND JEREMI SURI, series editors
A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book.

America in the World

A History in Documents from the War with Spain to the War on Terror

Edited by Jeffrey A. Engel,
Mark Atwood Lawrence, and Andrew Preston

Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford

Copyright 2014 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

America in the world : a history in documents from the War with Spain to the War on Terror / edited by Jeffrey A. Engel, Mark Atwood Lawrence, and Andrew Preston.
pages cm (America in the world series)

Includes index.

Summary: How should America wield its enormous power beyond its borders? Should it adhere to grand principles or act on narrow self-interest? Should it partner with other nations or avoid entangling alliances? Americans have been grappling with questions like these throughout the nations history, and especially since the emergence of the United States as a major world power in the late nineteenth century. America in the World illuminates this history by capturing the diverse voices and viewpoints of some of the most colorful and eloquent people who participated in these momentous debates.Spanning the era from the Gilded Age to the Obama years, this unique reader collects more than two hundred documentseverything from presidential addresses and diplomatic cables to political cartoons and song lyrics. It encompasses various phases of American diplomatic history that are typically treated separately, such as the First World War, the Cold War, and 9/11. The book presents the perspectives of elite policymakerspresidents, secretaries of state, generals, and diplomatsalongside those of other kinds of Americans, such as newspaper columnists, clergymen, songwriters, poets, and novelists. It also features numerous documents from other countries, illustrating how foreigners viewed Americas role in the world. Ideal for classroom use, America in the World sheds light on the complex interplay of political, economic, ideological, and cultural factors underlying the exercise of American power on the global stageProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-691-13335-5 (hardback)ISBN 978-0-691-16175-4 (paperback) 1. United StatesForeign relations20th centurySources. 2. United StatesForeign relations21st centurySources. 3. United StatesHistory, Military20th centurySources. 4. United StatesHistory, Military21st centurySources. 5. United StatesForeign public opinionHistorySources. I. Engel, Jeffrey A. II. Lawrence, Mark Atwood. III. Preston, Andrew.

E744.A4857 2014

327.7300904dc23 2013035031

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Sabon Next LT Pro and Helvetica Neue LT Std

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acknowledgments

One of the pleasures of international history is the limitless opportunity for collaboration. No single scholar can hope to know everything about a field as vast as the history of U.S. relations with the outside world. In fact, as we constantly rediscovered in the process of putting this book together, not even a three-member team of scholars who have focused on diverse aspects of American foreign policy can command anything close to the expertise necessary for a collection of this size and ambition. We therefore have inevitably relied on the knowledge, wisdom, and generosity of numerous colleagues. Our sincere thanks go to Christopher Goscha, Madeline Hsu, Christopher Lee, Erez Manela, Svetlana Savranskaya, and Bartholomew Sparrow. We are also grateful to Christian Ostermann and Laura Deal at the Cold War International History Project for their help in navigating CWIHPs unparalleled collections.

Jeffrey Engel would like to thank Ronna Spitz of Southern Methodist Universitys Center for Presidential History, who organized and documented the seemingly endless quest for permissions, and Katherine Cart Engel, whose repeated feigning of interest during discussions of document foraging aided the project immeasurably. He also thanks the family of Edwin Marcus for their generosity in allowing republication of his work, as well as the library staffs of Princeton University, Southern Methodist University, Cambridge University, and the University of Edinburgh, where his contribution to this project was largely composed. Such peripatetic composition was possible only due to research support from Texas A&M Universitys Bush School of Government through funds donated by the family of Verlin and Howard Kruse, and the Office of the Provost of Southern Methodist University.

Mark Lawrence is grateful to Helen Pho for tracking down elusive documents, to Michelle Reeves for superb translation work on short notice, to David Willkie and Patrick Frank for their help in tracking down rights, and to the archival staffs at Indiana University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Iowa for their invaluable assistance. He also thanks the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy at Williams College, both of which provided generous support while he was working on this book. At Williams, he especially appreciates the support and friendship of James McAllister and the invaluable assistance of Rebecca Ohm.

Andrew Preston would like to thank Satoshi Endo, Tim Harper, Barak Kushner, Lorenz Lthi, and Sarah Snyder for their advice on documents and their contexts, as well as the staff at various libraries in Cambridge, especially the University Library, the Seeley Historical Library, and the Forbes Mellon Library at Clare College.

All of us are immensely grateful to the fantastic team at Princeton University Press. Brigitta van Rheinberg consistently displayed the perfect blend of encouragement and patience as the project unfolded. We feel extremely fortunate to have worked with her and have no doubt that she shares an equal measure of credit for whatever merits this book possesses. We also thank Larissa Klein and her successor, Claudia Acevedo, who guided us expertly through the final stages, not least by handling a torrent of e-mails with good cheer. Brian Bendlin did a superb job of copyediting and Natalie Baan handled production with exceptional efficiency and generosity. Finally, our thanks go to several anonymous reviewers, whose advice had a major impact on the finished product.

Introduction

THE LONG AMERICAN CENTURY

In the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War, Americans were unsure about their place in the world. For the previous half century, U.S. foreign policy had been defined by resistance to fascism and communism. But after these struggles, it was no longer clear what Americas world mission should beor, indeed, if America should have a mission. In this climate, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, perhaps the worlds most recognized diplomat, worried that many Americans did not believe the United States needed a foreign policy at all. He thought it did and, alarmed by their apathy, wrote a call to action in early 2001.