American Foreign Policy

The Truman Doctrine, announced by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, marked a significant change in U.S. foreign policy by committing to support free nations resisting communist influence. In response to political instability in Greece and Turkey, Truman requested $400 million in aid,…

In this courtroom argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, attorney Roger S. Baldwin defended the African captives of the Amistad, who had seized control of the Spanish schooner after being illegally enslaved and transported. Baldwin contended that the Africans were victims of international slave…

Former President John Quincy Adams argued on behalf of Africans who had seized the Spanish slave ship Amistad after being illegally enslaved and brought into U.S. waters. Speaking before the Supreme Court, Adams denounced the U.S. government’s support for Spanish slave traders and defended the…

This treaty ended hostilities between the United States and the Regency of Algiers following the Second Barbary War. It guaranteed the release of American captives, abolished tribute payments, and secured protections for U.S. commerce and naval operations in the Mediterranean. Negotiated by…

This treaty renewed peace between the United States and the Regency of Algiers after previous conflicts during the Barbary Wars. It reaffirmed U.S. naval rights in the Mediterranean and guaranteed the release of American captives. Algiers agreed to end demands for tribute and to protect American…

This diplomatic agreement between the United States and Great Britain expanded the naval enforcement zones established by their 1862 treaty to combat the African slave trade. The 1863 article allowed British and American warships to search and detain suspected slave-trading vessels near Puerto Rico…

The Treaty of Paris of 1898 ended the Spanish‑American War. Under its terms, Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba (which became independent) and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands to the United States (the latter in exchange for $20 million). The treaty took effect on April 11…

The Gadsden Purchase was a treaty between the United States and Mexico. Under the treaty, the U.S. paid Mexico $10 million for approximately 29,670 square miles of territory that now forms southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. The acquisition enabled the construction of more…

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo concluded the Mexican-American War. Under its terms, Mexico ceded a vast expanse of its northern territory to the United States. These included the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. In…

The Adams–Onis Treaty, negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Spanish Minister Luis de Onis, settled border disputes between the United States and Spain. It ceded East and West Florida to the United States in exchange for a payment of $5 million. It established a clear western…

<p><span class="deck"> To the question of acquiring new territories overseas, and owning colonies, one group of Americans answered with a resounding “No!”</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">A Volunteer’s Eyewitness Account of the War With Spain</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The American Experience With Foreign Aid</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">This is not a test. It’s the real thing.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">After a year at the University of Missouri studying American history, a Chinese professor tells what she discovered about us and how she imparts her new knowledge to the folks back home.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">It’s never a bad thing question how well you’re doing; the problem is to find a judicious observer who is determined neither to flatter, nor to condemn.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Americans have always sympathized with the Eastern European countries in their struggles for democracy, but, for two centuries, we haven’t been able to help much. Do we have a chance now? A distinguished expatriate looks at the odds.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Those who believe that America’s power is on the wane look to the example of Britain’s shockingly quick collapse. But the similarities may be less alarming than they seem.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The unquiet history of the modern state of Israel has been tied up with the United States from the beginning.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Of all the Allied leaders, argues FDR's biographer, only Roosevelt saw clearly the shape of the new world they were fighting to create.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">In 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Britain’s poorest, most dismal African colony, and what he saw there fired him with a fervor that helped found the United Nations.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">In an exchange of letters, a man who had an immeasurable impact on how the great struggle of our times was waged looks back on how it began.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Donald Kagan, a historian of the ancient world believes that, in every era, people have reacted to the demands of waging war in surprisingly similar ways, and that, to protect our national interests today, Americans must understand the choices that soldiers and statesmen made hundreds and even thousands of years ago.</span></p>

<p><span class="body">American self-interest was involved, of course, but the Marshall Plan remains what some have referred to as a rare example of “power used to its best end.”</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Our war with Spain marked the first year of the American century.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">It was born of a slew of compromises, which may be the secret of its survival in a vastly changed world.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">At a time when it can offer answers to urgent questions, we have forgotten America’s long history of “nation-building.”</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The soldier-historian-novelist Ralph Peters looks at how the world has changed in the past decade, and finds that America is both a hostage to history and likely to be saved by it.</span></p>