Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938

I first read Rise to Globalism in college, then again in grad school. It is worth revisiting every few years. The narrative is sweeping and reflects the conclusions and judgements of the author without appology. This is not a scholarly text in a rigorous, academic sense. It is well researched and the author is an authority, but the goal of the text is to tell the story of America's Rise to Globalism. The gentle narrative voice draws the rader into the experience, as interpreted by the author, in a way that uniquely conveys the ethos of the times. It's not Toynbee and it shouldn't be. It is worth reading and revisiting for what it is. Every American should be familiar with our country's Rise to Globalism.

Great book, but it lost a star because of distracting typos. Information was solid and historical context was spot on. I don't know if publishers are trying to save money by not using editors anymore or what, but they really need to check these before they print them. Extra punctuation, paragraph breaks in the middle of sentences, stuff like that.

This book is a real deal if you are a beginner. It explains things well. For each topic, this book will: 1. explain the background 2. introduce the backgroud/status of each player/countires 3. Set the big idea clear 4. explain the big idea. This is the first book I read about foreign policy and I now understand a lot about foreigh policies. This can be read as a history book too. It's very informative.

I purchased this book to prep for the FSOT, and so far it is great. I wish though there was a Audible version, this would make it a 10/10 would highly recommend.

I have found the book to be quite compelling and a good overview of the time period specified. The book is well written which makes it enjoyable to read. With the advantage of hindsight some of the author's opinions bleed through the pages (which is to be expected), but offer a fairly astute historical account. A must read for getting the general big picture of America's foreign policy post WWI. Have already recommended to friends and family.

This book started out really well. Ambrose did a good job of laying out the history of America's global relations. Like a good historian he pointed out the facts of what happened. He gave credit where credit was due but also gave appropriate criticisms. Yes it is easy to look back and criticize but he did so evenhandedly so that students could learn. Somewhere in the book the tone changed decidedly. Instead of pointing out what was good and what was bad about the presidents and their policies the book started taking on a definent slant. Where one would have at least expected some criticism of Carter you got only defense. At one point the author's only justification for Carter not being all that bad was that Nixon was bad too. This sounds like playground logic if I ever heard it. I went through the book and found something out that I did not know when I purchased it. Rather than two authors collaborating on one piece the actually wrote separate parts of the book. Originally written by Ambrose the book was later revised by Brinkley who obviously is nowhere near the historian that Ambrose was. A good historian can turn their personal feelings aside and look at things objectively, Brinkley is not one of them. The book was five stars up to the Nixon years when Ambrose was clearly writing. 0 stars are attributed to the op-ed portion that marks Brinkley's contribution.

Comprising a book on American foreign policy on the period between the conclusion of WWII, the end of the Cold War and Clintons and Bush's presidency is difficult to do within such a small book. One could publish numerous volumes to record this era in history. In this case this book was extremely succesfull drawing on the most relevant information available. It focuses largely (infact exclusively almost) on American foreign policy. One may see it at often times critical to the US, but it is not critical in the sense as it potrays America as the "bad guy" in the Cold War, but rather it is critical from an American or an insider perspective. A reformist perspective if you will. It gives the US, Credit where it is due and also criticism where it is due. Given that alot of the foreign policy conducted by American administrations has put American is a worse off position and has largely been a failure (i.e. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Reagan)the book dishes out a fair bit of critical overview. However, it paints the presidency of Eisenhower, George H. Bush and even Clinton (at times, but largely being critical of Clinton) in a positive light. Which is more than fair. The book is worth the read, especially if one wishes to read this as an introduction to US foreign policy.

Ambrose has done little of worth apart from this book, but this book alone gives him a solid place in the canon of solid survey historians who paint with a broad brush, perhaps doesn't get all the details clear, but nonetheless does a great job laying a foundation for future learning. I read this in high school then again in college; a useful and thought-provoking survey (that I just bought again for somebody interested in brushing up on foreign policy matters for an exam).