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 condition