Summary

The best writing on foreign policy integrates theory and policy in ways that address the principal questions about a country's place in the world and encourage the reader to think about contemporary questions from a long-term perspective. Accordingly, the essays in this volume have been chosen with an eye to whether they represent important and original thinking and are likely to remain relevant. The authors included here represent diverse views about foreign policy and the international context in which it takes place. While two dozen pieces chosen from a vast literature can never be definitive, nevertheless each of these articles offers a thoughtful, reasoned and often eloquent assessment that is likely to remain a reference point for those seriously interested in the subject. The work is organized into five sections: how to think about foreign policy, the domestic context, foreign policy and unipolarity, foreign policy after 9/11, and foreign policy and the future.