Description
Book SynopsisThis volume spans 1914â1939 to provide a concise interpretation of the role the United States played in the origins of the Second World War. It synthesizes recent scholarship about interwar international politics while also presenting an original interpretation of the sources of American policy.
The book shows how the drive for international reform, beginning with Woodrow Wilson, reflected both Americaâs unusual power and its fears about maintaining its domestic freedoms in a world dominated by arms races and the threat of war. The American desire to reform or to escape from the existing international system reshaped Europeâs balance of power from 1914â1929, leaving it precarious and unlikely to produce lasting stability. Americaâs power continued to loom globally even as it retreated into isolationism, contributing to the Westâs appeasement of Hitler, and to his sense that time was running out to achieve European hegemony. The epilogue analyzes how the United States affected
