Includes bibliographical references (p. [965]-995) and index.

"To begin the world over again" : foreign policy and the birth of the republic, 1776-1778 -- "None who can make us afraid" : the new republic in a hostile world, 1789-1801 -- "Purified as by fire" : republicanism challenged and reaffirmed, 1801-1815 -- "Leave the rest to us" : the assertive republic, 1815-1837 -- "A dose of arsenic" : slavery, expansionism, and the road to disunion, 1837-1861 -- "Last best hope" : the Union, the Confederacy, and Civil War diplomacy, 1861-1877 -- "A good enough England" : foreign relations in the Gilded Age, 1877-1893 -- The War of 1898 and the dawn of the American century, 1893-1901 -- "Bursting with good intentions" : the United States in world affairs, 1901-1913 -- "A new age" : Wilson, the Great War, and U.S. foreign policy, 1913-1921 -- Involvement without commitment, 1921-1931 -- The great transformation : depression, isolationism, and war, 1931-1941 -- "Five continents and seven seas" : World War II and the emergence of American globalism, 1941-1945 -- "A noble burden far from our shores" : Truman, the Cold War, and the revolution in American foreign policy, 1945-1953 -- Coexistence and crises, 1953-1961 -- Gulliver's troubles: Kennedy, Johnson, and the limits of power, 1961-1969 -- Nixon, Kissinger, and the end of the postwar era, 1969-1974 -- Foreign policy in an age of dissonance, 1974-1981 -- "A unique and extraordinary time in world history" : Gorbachev, Reagan, Bush, and the end of the Cold War, 1981-1991 -- The strength of a giant : America as hyper-power, 1992-2007.

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 uses foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America's dramatic rise from thirteen disparate colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast to the world's greatest superpower. A sweeping account of United States' foreign relations and diplomacy, this magisterial volume documents America's interaction with other peoples and nations of the world. Herring tells a story of stunning successes and sometimes tragic failures, captured in a fast-paced narrative that illuminates the central importance of foreign relations to the existence and survival of the nation, and highlights its ongoing impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. He shows how policymakers defined American interests broadly to include territorial expansion, access to growing markets, and the spread of an "American way" of life. And Herring does all this in a story rich in human drama and filled with epic events. Statesmen such as Benjamin Franklin and Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman and Dean Acheson played key roles in America's rise to world power. But America's expansion as a nation also owes much to the adventurers and explorers, the sea captains, merchants and captains of industry, the missionaries and diplomats, who discovered or charted new lands, developed new avenues of commerce, and established and defended the nation's interests in foreign lands. From the American Revolution to the fifty-year struggle with communism and conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, From Colony to Superpower tells the dramatic story of America's emergence as superpower--its birth in revolution, its troubled present, and its uncertain future.