Designed to encourage critical thinking about history this reader uses a carefully selected group of primary sources & analytical essays to allow students to test the interpretations of distinguished historians & draw their own conclusions about the history of American foreign policy This text serves as an effective educational tool for courses on US foreign policy recent US history or 20th Century US history The Seventh Edition introduces new studies on America's early foreign relations which seek to position the nation's post "9-11" attitudes & behaviors within historical context Some of the new literature spotlights cultural relations & the ways in which culturally constructed attitudes about class gender race & national identity have shaped American's perceptions of the world & subsequently its overseas relationships