Mayers examines the intellectual foundations of U.S. foreign policy since 1861 and analyzes the way that Americans, across the political spectrum and in times of conflict, have conceptualized the eras that would follow hostilities.

Mayers looks at history in terms of a current problem: How should the United States fashion its policy in the post-Cold War world? What is striking about previous attempts to impose order on a postwar world, Mayers reveals, is that they failed to fulfill the hopes of their authors. Yet the cumulative impact of these ideas has been to shape the collective imagination in America.