Power Politics - Bibliography
Acheson, Dean. Power and Diplomacy. Cambridge, Mass., 1958. Truman's secretary of state treats the relation between sources of power and the problems of postwar American foreign affairs.
Aron, Raymond. Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. New York, 1967. One of the most thoughtful examinations of the differences between politics of influence and politics of force.
——. Imperial Republic: The United States and the World, 1945–1973. Translated by Frank Jellinick. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1974.
Burns, Arthur Lee. Of Powers and Their Politics: A Critique of Theoretical Approaches. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968. A survey of the contemporary status of ideas on the logic and nature of power relationships.
Cohen, Warren I., ed. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations. 4 vols. New York, 1993. The authors of each volume in this history provide a thorough and expert treatment of the development of American power in the world since 1776.
Craig, Gordon A., and Alexander L. George. Force and States Craft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time. 3d ed. New York, 1995. This collection of essays and case studies includes a discussion of America's dilemma of power.
Kennan, George F. American Diplomacy, 1900–1950. Chicago, 1951. In this series of early Cold War lectures the "father" of the containment doctrine popularized the realist critique of Wilsonian idealism. Kennedy, Paul M. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York, 1987. This sweeping overview gives global and comparative perspective on the acquisition and complications of world power.
Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York, 1994. A student and practitioner of balance-of-power politics surveys America's changing role in the new world order.
Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford, Calif., 1992. A detailed account of how U.S. leaders developed a global framework for national security after 1945.
Morgenthau, Hans Joachim. In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Examination of American Foreign Policy. New York, 1951. Presents the views of the best known of the "realist" political scientists who suggest that states seek power for its own sake.
Morgenthau, Hans Joachim, and Kenneth W. Thompson. Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. 6th ed. New York, 1985. Morgenthau develops his theoretical approach at length.
Nye, Joseph S., Jr. Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. New York, 1990. Describes the challenges and limits of American power after World War II and the diffusion of power at the end of the Cold War.
Osgood, Robert Endicott. Ideals and Self Interest in America's Foreign Relations: The Great Transformation of the Twentieth Century. Chicago, 1953. Focuses on the realist versus idealist approaches to peace, internationalism, and the responsibilities of world power.
Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indian. Abridged edition. Lincoln, Nebr., 1986. A thorough but very readable history of American Indian policy from 1776 to 1980.
Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. New York, 1992. An impassioned account of the destruction of the native peoples of the New World.
Van Alstyne, Richard Warner. The Rising American Empire. Chicago, 1960. An interpretive history that emphasizes uses of force and the theme of expansion in American foreign relations from Washington to Wilson.