Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations to 1913 presents a straightforward, balanced, and comprehensive history of American international relations from the American Revolution to 1913. This core text demonstrates the complexities of the decision-making process that led to the rise and decline of the United States (relative to the ascent of other nations) in world power status. This volume relies on the natural chronology of historical events to organize and narrate the story as the nation's leaders saw it. It will help students understand the plight of present-day policymakers who encounter an array of problems that are rarely susceptible to simple analysis and ready solution. This text is ideal for American diplomatic history survey courses and courses on American foreign policy from the American Revolution to the present....

In this examination of Union and Confederate foreign relations during the Civil War from both European and American perspectives, Howard Jones demonstrates that the consequences of the conflict between North and South reached far beyond American soil.

Jones explores a number of themes, including the international economic and political dimensions of the war, the North’s attempts to block the South from winning foreign recognition as a nation, Napoleon III's meddling in the war and his attempt to restore French power in the New World, and the inability of Europeans to understand the integrated nature of slavery and union, resulting in their tendency to interpret the war as a senseless struggle between a South too large and populous to have its independence denied and a North too obstinate to give up on the preservation of the Union. Most of all, Jones explores the horrible nature of a war that attracted outside involvement as much as it repelled it.

Written in a narrative style that relates the story as its participants saw it play out around them, Blue and Gray Diplomacy depicts the complex set of problems faced by policy makers from Richmond and Washington to London, Paris, and St. Petersburg....

This book is a narrative history of America's foreign affairs from 1897 to the present that focuses on the major personalities and events from the William McKinley administration through President George W. Bush....