History and American Internationalism: The Formulation from the Past after World War II

Abstract

successful if it could create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants by measuring up its own best traditions. Americans, said the historian, diplomat, and policy analyst, would then be accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear. Kennan, in proposing the principle of containment of the Soviet Union, was taking for granted suppositions not only about America's place in space, but also in time. The spaces occupied by American influence have been studied and argued over by historians -the alliance system that reached globally, the network of strategic bases, and the wars fought over geopolitical areas in the national interest. But America's place as a world power in the long sweep of time has not received much historiographical attention.'