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A World Safe for Commerce

by Dale Copeland · 504 pages · ~9 hrs

Foreign PolicyEconomicsHistory

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Dale Copeland develops a new theory of American foreign policy that looks beyond traditional security concerns to economic motivations. He argues that American leaders have consistently acted to maintain access to global markets and raw materials, sometimes even more urgently than they have responded to military threats. Copeland traces this pattern from the Open Door Policy toward China through the Cold War to contemporary conflicts, showing how commercial interests shaped grand strategy. The book challenges both liberal theories that see economics as promoting peace and realist theories focused purely on military power. Copeland shows that American leaders have been willing to risk war when they believed economic access was threatened, even when direct security interests were not at stake. The theoretical framework illuminates cases from World War II's origins in Japanese and German efforts to create closed economic blocs to current competition with China over technology and supply chains. For scholars and policymakers seeking to understand the economic foundations of American power, this book provides a rigorous analytical framework.

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