The Great League of Peace and Power

David C. Hendrickson is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Colorado College where he taught until 2020. He is the author of numerous acclaimed works on American diplomacy and political thought, including Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding and Union, Nation, or Empire: The American Debate over International Relations, 1789-1941, both from University Press of Kansas.

"David Hendrickson, a distinguished historian of American foreign policy, sums up the wisdom gleaned during his long career, in what can only be termed a tour de force. Not only is The Great League of Peace and Power a model of erudition and shrewd judgment, it is beautifully written and punctures many academic and popular misconceptions about US relations with the world since 1776."-Walter McDougall, author of The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America's Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest "No one presently writing-I mean no one-can match David Hendrickson's grasp of the ambitions and contradictions that have shaped America's role in the world, both past and present."-Andrew Bacevich, Co-Founder, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and author of Diplomat in Khaki: Major General Frank Ross McCoy and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1949 "With The Great League of Peace and Power, David Hendrickson makes another provocative and original contribution to the understanding of American history."-Michael Mandelbaum, author of The American Way of Foreign Policy: Ideology, Economics, Democracy "Clear and insightful, The Great League of Peace and Power illuminates the emergence of an American empire on a continental and then global scale. Created in 1776 to keep the internal peace among thirteen fractious states, the American union became formidable to outsiders. Hendrickson offers a sobering coda where, under current mismanagement, this overextended and overexposed empire unravels with dire consequences for us and others."-Alan Taylor, author of American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873 "Hendrickson has long been one of the most distinguished historians of international politics and American foreign policy-distinguished not only for his acute and often original analysis, but by his lucid, stylish and witty prose. All of this comes together in this brilliant and compelling history of American foreign policy from the revolution until today."-Jerome Slater, Political Science Professor Emeritus, SUNY/Buffalo