From colony to superpower : U.S. foreign relations since 1776 / George C. Herring.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [965]-995) and index.

"To begin the world over again" : foreign policy and the birth of the republic, 1776-1778 -- "None who can make us afraid" : the new republic in a hostile world, 1789-1801 -- "Purified as by fire" : republicanism challenged and reaffirmed, 1801-1815 -- "Leave the rest to us" : the assertive republic, 1815-1837 -- "A dose of arsenic" : slavery, expansionism, and the road to disunion, 1837-1861 -- "Last best hope" : the Union, the Confederacy, and Civil War diplomacy, 1861-1877 -- "A good enough England" : foreign relations in the Gilded Age, 1877-1893 -- The War of 1898 and the dawn of the American century, 1893-1901 -- "Bursting with good intentions" : the United States in world affairs, 1901-1913 -- "A new age" : Wilson, the Great War, and U.S. foreign policy, 1913-1921 -- Involvement without commitment, 1921-1931 -- The great transformation : depression, isolationism, and war, 1931-1941 -- "Five continents and seven seas" : World War II and the emergence of American globalism, 1941-1945 -- "A noble burden far from our shores" : Truman, the Cold War, and the revolution in American foreign policy, 1945-1953 -- Coexistence and crises, 1953-1961 -- Gulliver's troubles: Kennedy, Johnson, and the limits of power, 1961-1969 -- Nixon, Kissinger, and the end of the postwar era, 1969-1974 -- Foreign policy in an age of dissonance, 1974-1981 -- "A unique and extraordinary time in world history" : Gorbachev, Reagan, Bush, and the end of the Cold War, 1981-1991 -- The strength of a giant : America as hyper-power, 1992-2007.

Historian Herring uses foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America's rise from thirteen disparate colonies along the Atlantic coast to the world's greatest superpower. He documents America's interaction with other peoples and nations, a story of stunning successes and sometimes tragic failures, captured in a fast-paced narrative that illuminates the central importance of foreign relations to the existence and survival of the nation, and highlights its ongoing impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. He shows how policymakers defined American interests broadly to include territorial expansion, access to growing markets, and the spread of an "American way" of life, and how much America's expansion as a nation also owes to the adventurers and explorers, the merchants and captains of industry, the missionaries and diplomats, who discovered or charted new lands, developed new avenues of commerce, and established and defended the nation's interests in foreign lands.--From publisher description.