Overview

In The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy, Michael Mandelbaum offers a new framework for understanding the evolution of the foreign policy of the United States. He divides that evolution into four distinct periods, with each defined by the consistent increase in American power relative to other countries. His history of the four periods features engaging accounts of the major events and important personalities in the foreign policy of each era. Throughout, Mandelbaum highlights fundamental continuities in the goals of American foreign policy and in the way that policy was adopted and implemented. He portrays the United States, in its ascent, first as a weak power, from 1765 to 1865, then as a great power between 1865 and 1945, next as a superpower in the years 1945 to 1990, and finally as the world's sole hyperpower, from 1990 to 2015. He also presents three features of American foreign policy that are found in every era: first, the goal of disseminating the political ideas Americans have embraced from the first; second, the use of economic instruments in pursuit of the country's foreign policy goals; and third, a process for formulating policy and implementing decisions shaped by considerable popular influence. American foreign policy, as he puts it, has been unusually ideological, unusually economic, and unusually democratic.

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Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of sixteen books, including Mission Failure, The Ideas That Conquered the World, The Meaning of Sports, The Frugal Superpower, and That Used to Be Us (with Thomas L. Friedman). As a full-time voice talent and Audie-nominated audiobook narrator, Lyle Blaker has narrated nearly 100 audiobook titles, as well as countless hours of e-learning narration for major companies such as Houghton Mifflin, Harvard Business School, and Refinery Pass, and is an often-used voice for WGBH Channel 2 in Boston, Massachusetts. He is known for his warm, friendly, and approachable narration style.

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