The history of U.S. foreign relations is neither a series of improvisations nor the consistent pursuit of perceived material interests. Rather, American diplomacy has its origins in a set of ideas and traditions that the American people have long held dear—ideas such as liberty, redemption, and idealism. What has frequently complicated matters is that often these traditions come into conflict with one another. This institute will identify and discuss these ideas and traditions in an effort to understand the role that the United States has played on the world stage since the American Revolution.

Faculty: John Moser is Assistant Professor of History at Ashland University. He is the author of Twisting the Lion's Tail: American Anglophobia Between the World Wars and Presidents from Hoover through Truman, 1929-1953. Jeremi A. Suri is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente and is working on a volume called Henry Kissinger and the Transformation of International Society.