Between virtue and power : the persistent moral dilemma of U.S. foreign policy / John Kane.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-391) and index.

1. Introduction -- 2. Origins and Significance of the American Mythology -- 3. Founding a Virtuous Republic -- 4. Problems of Virtue and Power -- 5. Nonentanglement: The Economic Dimension -- 6. Nonentanglement: The Political Dimension -- 7. Innocent Virtue and the Conquest of a Continent -- 8. From Imperialism to World Peace -- 9. Woodrow Wilson and the Reign of Virtue -- 10. Disillusionment and Hope -- 11. American Isolation -- 12. American Virtue and the Soviet Challenge -- 13. Anticommunism and American Virtue -- 14. Cold War Ironies -- 15. Vietnam: Virtue Stained, Power Humbled -- 16. Putting Humpty Together Again -- 17. Offended Innocence, Righteous Wrath.

"In this survey of U.S. history, John Kane looks at the tensions between American virtue and power and how those tensions have influenced foreign policy. Americans have long been suspicious of power as a threat to individual liberty, Kane argues, and yet the growth of national power has been perceived as a natural by-product of American virtue. This contradiction has posed a persistent crisis that has influenced the trajectory of American diplomacy and foreign relations for more than two hundred years." "Kane examines the various challenges, including emerging nationalism, isolationism, and burgeoning American power, which have at times challenged not only foreign policy but American national identity. The events of September 11, 2001, rekindled Americans' sense of righteousness, the author observes, but the subsequent use of power in Iraq has raised questions about the nation's virtue and, as in earlier days, cast a deep shadow over its purpose and direction."--BOOK JACKET.