The United States as a World Power (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The United States as a World PowerNo one can be more conscious than the author of this volume how far it is from carrying out the too ambitious promise of its title. Its subject - the United States as a World Power - could well be treated in many different ways. One writer might recount the growth of the country from its earliest infancy to its present stature; to another its economic position in the world to-day might be of surpassing interest; a third might care only for the spiritual influence of the United States, the spread of American ideals of liberty, government and civilization, and the changes those same ideals are now undergoing. The scope of the present work is more modest. It is a study of the part which the United States plays in the great drama of world politics - a part which cannot help being important and which, although impossible to prophesy about in detail, yet is affected by circumstances of geography and of national character, of history and of tradition, of economic and of social conditions susceptible of investigation.This book was originally prepared in the form of lectures which were delivered at the Sorbonne in the winter of 1906-07 as the Harvard lectures on the Hyde foundation. Since then it has been entirely recast, but it doubtless still retains traces of having been first addressed to a foreign audience, the more so as I have striven to preserve a neutral rather then a specifically American attitude.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.