This book provides a lively and readable introduction to current debates over U.S. power and purpose in world affairs. These debates involve two crucial questions: Should U.S. foreign policy focus on securing vital interests that are narrowly defined, or should the United States seek to spread U.S. institutions and values to other societies? Should the United States exercise maximum independence in the exercise of U.S. power abroad or work principally through multilateral institutions? This book brings together many different voices to answer these questions and to add to our understanding of the issues.

Introduction; I: U.S. Dominance and Its Limits; 1: American Primacy in Perspective; 2: The Decline of America's Soft Power; 3: The Inadequacy of American Power; 4: America as a European Hegemon; 5: A Global Power Shift in the Making; II: An American Empire?; 6: History Lesson; 7: Is the U.S. an Empire?; 8: The New American Militarism; 9: The American Empire; 10: The Case for American Empire; 11: The Empire Slinks Back; III: Strategic Choice; 12: Democratic Realism; 13: After Neoconservatism; 14: Leadership at Risk; 15: Is American Multilateralism in Decline?; IV: Attitudes toward American Power at Home and Abroad; 16: The Paradoxes of American Nationalism; 17: Power and Weakness; 18: The Effects of September 11; 19: Views of a Changing World 2003; 20: Taming American Power; V: Case Studies in U.S. Grand Strategy; 21: The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 2002; 22: The Case for Overthrowing Saddam Was Unimpeachable; 23: America's Imperial Ambition; 24: Realism's Shining Morality; 25: Bounding the Global War on Terrorism; 26: The End of the Bush Revolution; Conclusion