Walter LaFeber

Walter LaFeber and Michael Schaller have both written stimulating diplomatic histories of Japan. Unfortunately, Japan's history is less one of outstanding statesmen than of the people they served.

From John Quincy Adams' conception of America as "the champion and vindicator only of her own liberty" to Woodrow Wilson's idealism, the splendid new Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations shows the extent to which foreign policy debates in America have really concerned the definition of the nation.