If you want to get your students to really read the American foreign policy book you assign—to fully digest and assimilate its content—select a book that is compelling, thought provoking, and relevant. Drawing on the Bush administration’s foreign policy maneuvering and the realities of a post–9/11 world, Thomas M. Magstadt goes beyond a mere recitation of events in U.S. diplomatic history. He instead paints a vivid portrayal of the tension between the pursuit of power and the adherence to principle deeply embedded in the nation’s political culture.

Magstadt traces the country’s move from vulnerable upstart in 1789 to great power by 1898 to unrivaled dominance at the turn of the twenty-first century. The United States started off relatively weak in the international balance of power system, giving rise to isolationism and a rhetorical flourish grounded in moral principles. But now, as the world’s only superpower, considerations of security and self-interest compete head-to-head with the moral imperative for global leadership and the promotion of democratic ideals.

The dynamics of process also matter in this struggle. This brief text illuminates the complexities of both policy– and decision-making in a way that balances coverage more compactly and more analytically than core texts do, thereby improving readability and student critical thinking.

An Empire If You Can Keep It avoids polemics but does not shy away from the controversy raging in intellectual and policy circles over the Bush Doctrine. Magstadt places recent foreign policy developments in the context of America’s historic sense of purpose, stressing the search for a new consensus and a new balance between power and principle, between hard and soft power.

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(each chapter begins with an Overview and ends with a Conclusion)

Preface
Maps

1. America’s Foreign Policy: Product, Process, and Purpose
Foreign Policy As Product: A U.S. Approach
Foreign Policy As Process: Getting Organized
Realism and Idealism in American Foreign Policy
The Limits of American Power
Power Politics and the Pursuit of Principles after September 11

2. Ideals and Self Interest: The American Way
The Founders and Foreign Policy
Young America, Old World
Europe, Keep Out!
American Wars
From Isolationism to Hegemony

3. Hegemony and Insolvency: The Burdens of a Great Power
The Concept of Solvency
Latin America: Big Stick Diplomacy
The New Frontier: Opening Doors in Asia
World War I: Replacing the Old Order
Wilson’s New World Order
Losing the Peace: The Tragedy of Versailles

4. Between Wars: Collective Security and Delusions of Peace
Collective Insecurity (1919–1935)
Back to the Future (1936–1941)
The Failed Search for Solvency

5. The Cold War: Containment and Deterrence
The End of Isolationism
The Arsenal of Democracy: An Emerging Superpower
Containment: Big Idea, Big Price Tag
Containment Goes to War: Korea
Containment and Deterrence
The Nifty Fifties: Calm before the Storm

6. Intervention against Communism: From Kennedy to Reagan
Foreign Policy on Hold (1964–1971)
When Democracy Is Bad for America: Chile
Détente and Decline (1972–1980)
The Limits of Idealism: The Carter Legacy
Bouncing Back: The Reagan Presidency, 1981–1989

7. Democracy and Anarchy: America in the New World Order
Policy without Vision (1989–1993)
The Gulf War (1990–1991)
The New Interventionism
Reinventing Foreign Policy (1993–1997)
The Neoconservative Challenge

8. From Intervention to Preemption: America’s New Crusade
Russia: Neither Enemy Nor Partner
Reinventing NATO
Terrorism: Mischief or Mortal Threat?
Will the Real George W. Bush Please Stand?
An Act of War: September 11, 2001
America’s New Crusade in Historical Perspective
From Clinton to Bush: A Study in Contrasts

9. Power, Principles, and War: The Limits of Foreign Policy
The Meaning of September 11, 2001
Doctrines versus Principles
Empires and Blowback
The Deadly “Game” of War
War and the Economy
Back to the Future

Index
About the Author

"The terrorist attacks of September 11 did more than demolish the Twin Towers; they also shook what Tom Magstadt identifies as the twin pillars of American foreign policy: power and principle. Finding the right balance between these competing principles-between realism and idealism, isolationism and internationalism, the power of diplomacy and the power of military strength-has never been more difficult, or more urgent, than it is in this post-September 11 world. Tom Magstadt does not offer neat answers about America’s proper role in the world. Instead, he provides information and poses questions to help readers form their own reasoned opinions, which is what our democracy sorely needs today. An Empire If You Can Keep It is informative, insightful, sometimes provocative and, above all, timely."

"This is the book that strikes the best balance between power and idealism in the formation of American foreign policy. It is a carefully researched, thoughtfully interpreted account of the main threads of America’s relations with the global family. Any student, teacher, or layperson who reads and ponders this volume will be the richer for it."

“Professor Magstadt has produced a lively text that encompasses the sweep of American foreign policy history, but with a goal of helping the reader understand the cross-currents of our day. The intellectual framework is traditional, but the reasoning is fresh. This is a text that will help the novice and the expert alike consider the significance of the momentous developments unfolding around us.”

“Thomas Magstadt's An Empire If You Can Keep It is an important and insightful book. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of U.S. foreign policy and the acute tensions that often exist between America's exercise of power in the world and the preservation of crucial American values.”

“Thomas Magstadt's An Empire If You Can Keep It: Power and Principle in American Foreign Policy could be the best and most comprehensive short text on the tension between means and ends, power and purposes in American foreign policy. Without neglecting historical context, it raises analysis to the level of informing principles from the founding fathers to George W. Bush. It engages the student philosophically always mindful of historical context. It fills an urgent need long overlooked by publishers.”

“Analytically rich and up-to-date, provocative and balanced, lucid and accessible, Magstadt's study of the tension between power and principle in U.S. foreign relations is sobering and illuminating. It would be of interest to scholars and students of international affairs alike.”

Thomas M. Magstadt earned his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has taught at the Air War College, Augustana College, University of Nebraska at Kearney, and University of Missouri–Kansas City; worked for the federal government as an intelligence analyst; and was a Fulbright Lecturer in the Czech Republic. He is the author of two political science textbooks, Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institutions, and Issues, 6th edition (2003) and Nations and Governments: Comparative Politics in Regional Perspective, 5th edition, (2004). His articles have appeared in such publications as Worldview, Reason, National Review, and many major newspapers.