Walter LaFeber is the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of American History at Cornell University. His most recent
book, The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations, was awarded both the Bancroft Prize for Diplomacy and
the Organization of American Historians' Ellis W. Hawley Prize.
Review
"In this Beveridge Award-winning study, Walter LaFeber . . . probes beneath the apparently quiet surface
of late nineteenth-century American diplomacy, undisturbed by major wars and undistinguished by important statements
of policy. He finds those who shaped American diplomacy believed expanding foreign markets were the cure for recurring
depressions. . . . In thoroughly documenting economic pressure on American foreign policy of the late nineteenth
century, the author has illuminated a shadowy corner of the national experience. . . . The theory that America
was thrust by events into a position of world power it never sought and was unprepared to discharge must now be
re-examined. Also brought into question is the thesis that American policymakers have depended for direction on
the uncertain compass of utopian idealism."
--American Historical Review
Cornell University Press Web Site, February, 2001
Summary
This classic work, by the distinguished historian Walter LaFeber, presents his widely influential argument that
economic causes were the primary forces propelling America to world power in the nineteenth century. Cornell University
Press is proud to issue this thirty-fifth anniversary edition, featuring a new preface by the author.
"In this Beveridge Award-winning study, Walter LaFeber . . . probes beneath the apparently quiet surface of
late nineteenth-century American diplomacy, undisturbed by major wars and undistinguished by important statements
of policy. He finds those who shaped American diplomacy believed expanding foreign markets were the cure for recurring
depressions. . . . In thoroughly documenting economic pressure on American foreign policy of the late nineteenth
century, the author has illuminated a shadowy corner of the national experience. . . . The theory that America
was thrust by events into a position of world power it never sought and was unprepared to discharge must now be
re-examined. Also brought into question is the thesis that American policymakers have depended for direction on
the uncertain compass of utopian idealism."