Our foreign policy history includes both major successes (think of such as the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II) and major failures, (think of the Vietnam War and the invasion of Iraq). Our children and grandchildren live in a world with some dangerous adversaries (Russia, China and Iran). Our foreign policy is key to our survival. We are more likely to get it right if we try to learn from our foreign policy history – the goal of this course.

The course will cover American foreign policy since 1776 (tracing unilateralism, expansionism, Manifest Destiny, tipping the balance of the First World War, idealism in forming the League of Nations, the Second World War, followed by the Cold War, Bush’s New World Order, Vietnam, and the distinctive styles and policies of Trump and Biden).  All this will serve as background for Richard Mansfield’s course on contemporary issues of American foreign policy that will follow immediately in the second part of the fall courses at the same time.  While participants can sign up separately for one of the two courses, it is highly recommended that you take both courses.

We’ll begin each class with Q and A regarding the assigned reading.  This will lead to brief lectures pertinent to the readings but with personal insights.  My goal is to use lectures to spark discussions that will carry through to the end of each class.  The syllabus assigns reading about 55 pages a week from the text, which is especially well and clearly written, and reading ahead is highly recommended. In addition, I will circulate, via email, short contemporary articles culled from The Economist.

Because of prior arranged travel, Richard Mansfield will conduct the first session in my absence.  I, in turn, will participate to some extent in his course on contemporary issues which follows this one.