The Tragedy of American Diplomacy
The revisionist account of US foreign policy as an open-door search for markets, published in 1959.
Williams argued in 1959 that American foreign policy had been shaped less by ideology than by a persistent search for markets, the Open Door, and that intervention followed from it. The book founded the Wisconsin school of diplomatic history and remains the standard revisionist account.
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Eric Foner
Williams’s book remains important because it shows that foreign interventionism and free trade is deeply embedded in liberal history. Williams critiques American foreign policy as a foreign policy of good intentions. Liberals want to improve the world beyond our borders and broaden the rights of people overseas. The imperial temptation is something that liberals succumb to as much as conservatives.
Interview · September 2012
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