About this title: The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multi-volume history of our nation in print. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize-winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of prestigious Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. From Colony to Superpower is the only thematic volume commissioned for the series. Here George C. Herring ...
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: 10/28/2008
ISBN-13:9780195078220ISBN:0195078225
Description: Very Good. 0195078225 Ships next business day. Very Good Condition and Unread! Text is clean and unmarked! Tear to dust jacket. --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780195078220ISBN:0195078225
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. In excellent condition. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 1056 p. Contains: Illustrations. Oxford History of the United States (Hardcover). Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using International Priority Airmail. Delivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Heavier and more expensive items have tracking number. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multi-volume history of our nation in print. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize-winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of prestigious ... read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780195078220ISBN:0195078225
Description: New. In this installment of the multi-volume Oxford History of the United States, Herring delivers a sweeping account of the United States' foreign relations and diplomacy, which tells the dramatic story of America's emergence as superpower--its birth in... read more
Description: PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using International Priority Airmail. Delivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Heavier and more expensive items have tracking number. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multi-volume history of our nation in print. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize-winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of prestigious ... read more
Description: New. DISPATCHED FROM UNITED KINGDOM. NO EXPEDITED SHIPPING! Please note orders are confirmed immediately and may take 2-3 business days to ship. This processing time is in addition to the shipping time. Please allow 10-14 days for delivery. Brand new item. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: G20091122101337D. read more
"Well, I wrapped up the epic From Colony to Superpower, George Herring's epic one volume history of American Foreign Policy. It is a the only thematic book in the Oxford History of the United States. I, for one, loved it. The depth of treatment on the 18th and 19th century was wonderful. As we got to the post-war era, my extensive reading in the subject made it less useful, but still good. Good God, though, is this book long. Thanks to the length, this book is for a select group of people. If two of the following make sense to you, then get the book.
* Want value for your money. $35 for 1000 pages, a rare deal, this day and age?! * Are a Oxford University History of the United States completist (guilty!) * Want a single volume treatment of American foreign policy that doesn't ignore the 19th century. * Have lots of free time and can ignore the beckoning call of books from your reading pile. * Like large colorful volumes for the bookshelf.
Having made it through, and if you find you want something that is more analytical than historical, seek out H.W. Brands What America Owes the World and Walter Russell Mead's Special Providence. The Herring book, while filled with useful ways of thinking, is really about what happened. The Brands and Mead books will give more analytical frameworks for thinking about it."
"From a layperson's point of view, I found this book adequately interesting (though at times, tedious) and overall, helpful and informative. It covers precisely what it says it will, the U.S. Foreign policy from 1776 until just after the Iraq war surge of 2007.
Quite understandably, there is an extensive bibliographical essay at the book's end.
In the final two paragraphs, the author broke from the retelling and analysis of America's foreign policy, and wrote his own advice of what this country can do, and how it may yet be perceived:
"Americans must also 'disenthrall' themselves, to borrow Lincoln's apt word, from deeply entrenched ideas about their country and its place in the world. They must 'think anew, and act anew.' They must cast away centuries-old notions of themselves as God's chosen people. In today's world, such pretensions cannot fail to alienate others. They should recognize the historical truth that the United States in its dealings with other people and nations has not been uniquely innocent and virtuous. It has done much good in the world, but in its drive to superpower status it has often violated its own principles and inflicted harm on other peoples. Unilateralism served the nation well for its first century and a half, but in the vastly shrunken and still very dangerous world of the twenty-first century, it is simply not viable. Most problems are global in scope and require multilateral solutions. The United States cannot resolve them by itself and on its terms, and efforts to do so, as the Iraq war has made clear, will likely be counterproductive. The United States must be more prudent in the use of its still quite considerable power. In the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan, it must not withdraw from a seemingly hostile and ungrateful world. But it must also recognize that power, no matter how great, has limits. The nation cannot rid the world of evil, as it defines evil; it cannot impose its way on other peoples by military force or diplomatic pressures. 'The American idea can still resonate,' columnist Roger Cohen recently observed. But, he adds, U.S. 'leaders must embody it rather than impose it.' They must lead by example and especially by listening to other peoples and nations. The United States cannot dictate the shape of a new world order, but the way it responds to future foreign policy challenges can help ensure its security and well-being and exert a powerful influence for good or ill.""
"We've got a presidential election coming up. I thought it might be a good time to take a run through the entire history of United States foreign policy. And what better way to do so then the forthcoming edition of the Oxford History of the United States series- From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776.
More than anything else, the President of the United States is responsible for this countries' foreign policy. The public isn't always so cognizant of that fact- Presidential elections tend to swing between domestic and foreign concerns depending on the whim of the public. If there is one thing that's clear from this book: as the United States has grown as a nation, presidents have gained more power over foreign relations and they've done more with that power. In fact, at times this book read more like a history of the President and his impact on foreign relations. Congress pops in and out of the story, public opinion makes an appearance here and there. Other then that it's President X did Y in Country Z.
Which is not to denigrate this exceptional, magisterial effort. Herring (or his graduate students) have managed to integrate virtually every available source on the subject of American foreign relations. At times, U.S. Foreign Relations is a positively heady experience. Herring and Oxford wisely keep the footnotes on the main pages instead of relegating them to an end section. It's a good decision- there's a new adventure on almost every page, and the foot notes are a handy guide to existing histiographical debates on different subjects involving U.S. Foreign Relations.
Herring's basic thesis is that the United States has been a sophisticated player on the international scene from the very beginning, by virtue of necessity. Herring has little patience for the concept of "American isolationism." Herring does an excellent work of explaining the transition from colony to young nation. As a young nation, the U.S. was an anomaly- not a European country, not a colony either. In the beginning, the U.S was kind an appendage to the European "balance of power" system. Many decisions by the U.S and countries like France & Britain were made because of events happening thousands of miles away.
Moving into the 19th century, the U.S. begins to assert itself in the western hemisphere- the war of 1812, Louisiana Purchase, Monroe Doctrine, the Mexican American War- through out Herring keeps the events rolling by and does well to give a sense of the decision makers, their backgrounds and their logic. It's an entertaining tableau that moves by too quickly, in my opinion.
A point that Herring makes- repeatedly- is that the process of "manifest destiny" was itself a tour de force of foreign relations. Ironically, "isolationists" don't often stop to consider that point. Merely acquiring the territory that constitutes the present U.S. required a lot of careful diplomacy.
By taking a chronological approach, Herring emphasizes oft overlooked transitional period in U.S. foreign policy which helps place better known eras in context. For example, his chapter on the Gilded Age serves as an excellent introduction to the Wilsonian era during and after the first world war. Woodrow Wilson emerges from this book as an obvious favorite of the author: his simultaneous quest to create a foreign policy based on principle and create a broader level of engagement between the U.S. and the rest of the world foreshadows much of what is to come in the 20th century.
I was surprised that Herring's analysis remained astute right up to the present day- typically books that end in the present trail off in terms of effectiveness' the closer they get to the present. He leaves us acknowledging the imminent decline of the U.S. as the world's so super or "hyper" power and asks whether we might not be entering a world where "third world" countries have become the rising powers of the 21st century.
Where does that leave this Presidential election? My take is that we should elect a President who does not look back to the Cold War and Post Cold War period, but rather someone who can help the U.S. regain it's "soft power" with countries that we have previously maltreated and/or ignored. Our new President should be able to effectively communicate with nations like India and Brazil and not be so bound up with the old world of Europe.
Although Bush's foray into nation building in Iraq may yet prove successful from a "national defense" view point, it has been a blood bath for our soft power, and we need someone who can help win that power back."
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