In the wake of 9/11, the United States government rediscovered the value of culture in international relations, sending cultural ambassadors around the world to promote the American way of life. This is the most recent effort to use American culture as a means to convince others that the United States is a land of freedom, equality, opportunity, and scientific and cultural achievements to match its material wealth and military prowess. In The History of United States Cultural Diplomacy Michael Krenn charts the history of the cultural diplomacy efforts from Benjamin Franklin's service as commissioner to France in the 1770s through to the present day. He explores how these efforts were sometimes inspiring, often disastrous, and nearly always controversial attempts to tell the 'truth' about America. This is the first comprehensive study of America's efforts in the field of cultural diplomacy. It reveals a dynamic conflict between those who view U.S. culture as a means to establish meaningful dialogues with the rest of the world and those who consider American art, music, theater as additional propaganda weapons.

As the United States begins planning for the 21st century and its role in an increasingly shrinking world that will continue to bring America face to face with different peoples and cultures, its is incumbent upon students and professionals alike to understand the role of race in U.S. foreign policy.

This reader, by bringing together some of the most important and informative scholarly works dealing with that topic, indicates the wide-ranging imagination and inquisitiveness of some of academia's leading minds. From the nation's colonial beginnings through the Cold War, this reader illustrates exactly how American concepts of race and racism have helped shape the nation's interactions and conflicts with other countries and peoples.

The post World War I years witnessed the growth of a powerful civil rights movement among African Americans culminating in the triumphs and setbacks of the 1960s. At the same time, however, African Americans were extending their view outward from the shores of the United States, taking a greater interest in foreign affairs and their nation's foreign policy than ever before.

The selections in this reader focus on how and why that interest developed, and what impact African Americans had on U.S. diplomacy. They demonstrate how the fight for civil rights and equality at home quickly spilled over into concerns regarding race and foreign policy. A tremendous interest in the decolonization of Africa, efforts to have an African American voice heard in the United Nations protests against South African apartheid, and criticisms of the Vietnam War were all indications that for many African Americans race was now a global issue.

In the wake of 9/11, the United States government rediscovered the value of culture in international relations, sending cultural ambassadors around the world to promote the American way of life. This is the most recent effort to use American culture as a means to convince others that the United States is a land of freedom, equality, opportunity, and scientific and cultural achievements to match its material wealth and military prowess. In The History of United States Cultural Diplomacy Michael Krenn charts the history of the cultural diplomacy efforts from Benjamin Franklin's service as commissioner to France in the 1770s through to the present day. He explores how these efforts were sometimes inspiring, often disastrous, and nearly always controversial attempts to tell the 'truth' about America. This is the first comprehensive study of America's efforts in the field of cultural diplomacy. It reveals a dynamic conflict between those who view U.S. culture as a means to establish meaningful dialogues with the rest of the world and those who consider American art, music, theater as additional propaganda weapons.

During the Cold War, culture became another weapon in America's battle against communism. Part of that effort in cultural diplomacy included a program to arrange the exhibition of hundreds of American paintings overseas. Michael L. Krenn studies the successes, failures, contradictions, and controversies that arose when the U.S. government and the American art world sought to work together to make an international art program a reality between the 1940s and the 1970s. The Department of State, then the United States Information Agency, and eventually the Smithsonian Institution directed this effort, relying heavily on the assistance of major American art organizations, museums, curators, and artists. What the government hoped to accomplish and what the art community had in mind, however, were often at odds. Intense domestic controversies resulted, particularly when the effort involved modern or abstract expressionist art. Ultimately, the exhibition of American art overseas was one of the most controversial Cold War initiatives undertaken by the United States. Krenn's investigation deepens our understanding of the cultural dimensions of America's postwar diplomacy and explores how unexpected elements of the Cold War led to a redefinition of what is, and is not, ""American.

At first glance, it may be difficult to accept that race and racism play a major role, whether conscious or subconscious, in policymaking. But leaders are products of their upbringing and era, and even some of America's best-educated presidents and secretaries of state have been slave owners, segregationists, or bigots. Some belong to America's distant past, but it was not so long ago that the civil rights movement began to correct America's troubled race relations. While race has rarely served as the primary motivating factor in America's foreign policies, Michael Krenn shows that it has functioned as both a powerful justification for U.S. actions abroad and a significant influence on their shape, direction, and intensity. Portraying nonwhite races as inferior allowed U.S. policymakers to rationalize territorial expansion at the expense of Native Americans and Mexico, to demonize the enemy in wars fought against Filipino insurgents and Japanese soldiers, and to justify intervention in developing nations. Racism made America's leaders soft on European colonialism, and U.S. racial segregation laws were an obstacle to winning hearts and minds in the developing world during the Cold War. Race plays a more subtle role in U.S. foreign relations today, but speeches about turning the war on terror into a crusade, the abuse of detainees in military prisons, and apathy toward genocide in Darfur can be explained, in part, by prejudice. "The Color of Empire" challenges readers to recognize that American perceptions and prejudices about race have influenced the conduct of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial era to the present. This concise survey is an excellent introduction to the topic forboth students and general readers.