In Search of Monsters to Destroy? American Foreign Policy, Revolution, and Regime Change, 1776-1900

The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with subsequent U.S. efforts to promote democracy in those countries, have raised a fundamental question as old as the Republic itself. Should the United States intervene, directly or indirectly, to bring about the change of a foreign regime, even to the point of governing other peoples without their consent? In Search of Monsters to Destroy? American Foreign Policy, Revolution, and Regime Change, 1776-1900, explores five notable occasions during which Americans debated seriously the feasibility and morality of foreign regime change. The principal protagonists in these debates - including Franklin, Jefferson, John and John Quincy Adams, Webster, Clay, Steven Douglas, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Jennings Bryan - were among the leading statesmen of their day. These case studies demonstrate certain consistent patterns of American thought about regime change, but also a significant evolution of views to accommodate new conditions in the international environment and domestic politics. The political and intellectual dynamic of the debates, as well as their particular outcomes, have had major significance for the overall direction of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, these controversies have been as much about the character of our own regime as that of others.