Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the American government refused to grant de jure recognition to the Soviet regime. American courts likewise refuse to acknowledge the legal existence of the Soviet Union in matters concerning Russian property in the United States. In the 1933 Litvinov Assignment, when President Roosevelt granted conditional recognition to Moscow, the Soviets assigned its rights to Russian property in the U.S. to the American government. The assignment, however, proved to be difficult for courts to interpret and implement after 16 years of nonrecognition. In 1937, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v Belmont that the assignment had been an executive agreement with the same domestic legal effect as a treaty. Five years later, it ruled that the American government had a superior claim to disputed Russian property to that of any private claimants because of the 1933 executive agreement. A review of the cases concerning the legal effects of Soviet-American relations from 1917 to 1942 demonstrates the domestic impacts of foreign relations and the role of the courts as they influence the conduct of foreign relations.

This lucid study assesses Page's career as ambassador to Great Britain from 1913 to 1918. It reconsiders the famous publisher's impact on American diplomacy through an examination of British-American relations in that troubled period. Page, a friend of Woodrow Wilson and an intense Anglophile, devoted his major efforts to bringing the United States into the war on the side of the Allies and to cementing Anglo-American friendship. The book brings to bear information from all pertinent manuscript collections in the United States and introduces new information on British-American relations from recently-opened documents in British Foreign Office Archives. Written in a clear and lively style, the book revises earlier interpretations of the importance of Page's ambassadorial career, placing it in balance perspective.

America has a long history of diplomacy–ranging from Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and James Baker–now is your chance to see the impact these Americans have had on the world. Recounting the actors and events of U.S. foreign policy, Zoellick identifies five traditions that have emerged from America's encounters with the world: the importance of North America; the special roles trading, transnational, and technological relations play in defining ties with others; changing attitudes toward alliances and ways of ordering connections among states; the need for public support, especially through Congress; and the belief that American policy should serve a larger purpose. These traditions frame a closing review of post-Cold War presidencies, which Zoellick foresees serving as guideposts for the future. Both a sweeping work of history and an insightful guide to U.S. diplomacy past and present, America in the World serves as an informative companion and practical adviser to readers seeking to understand the strategic and immediate challenges of U.S. foreign policy during an era of transformation.

Revolutionary Negotiations examines early American diplomatic negotiations with both the European powers and the various American Indian nations from the 1740s through the 1820s. Sadosky interweaves previously distinct settings for American diplomacy—courts and council fires—into one singular, transatlantic system of politics. Whether as provinces in the British Empire or as independent states, American assertions of power were directed simultaneously to the west and to the east—to Native American communities and to European empires across the Atlantic. American leaders aspired to equality with Europeans, who often dismissed them, while they were forced to concede agency to Native Americans, whom they often wished they could ignore. As Americans used diplomatic negotiation to assert their new nation's equality with the great powers of Europe and gradually defined American Indian nations as possessing a different (and lesser) kind of sovereignty, they were also forced to confront the relations between the states in their own federal union. Acts of diplomacy thus defined the founding of America, not only by drawing borders and facilitating commerce, but also by defining and constraining sovereign power in a way that privileged some and weakened others. These negotiations truly were revolutionary.

Days of Decision spans a century of American foreign policymaking, from the Spanish- American War of 1898 to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Michael J. Nojeim and David P. Kilroy carefully examine twelve foreign-policy landmarks, each of which played a crucial role in shaping world history and led to profound changes in U.S. foreign policy. Devoting one chapter to each turning point, they place it in its proper historical context, explore its political consequences--primarily the debates and divisions that arose among policymakers--and discuss the aftermath, focusing on its lasting influence on world affairs and the conduct of American diplomacy and foreign affairs. This accessible, introductory text provides students of foreign policy and international relations a deeper understanding of these disciplines' processes and of America's place in the world.

Challenging those who accept or advocate executive supremacy in American foreign-policy making, Constitutional Diplomacy proposes that we abandon the supine roles often assigned our legislative and judicial branches in that field. This book, by the former Legal Counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the first comprehensive analysis of foreign policy and constitutionalism to appear in over fifteen years. In the interval since the last major work on this theme was published, the War Powers Resolution has ignited a heated controversy, several major treaties have aroused passionate disagreement over the Senate's role, intelligence abuses have been revealed and remedial legislation debated, and the Iran-Contra affair has highlighted anew the extent of disagreement over first principles. Exploring the implications of these and earlier foreign policy disputes, Michael Glennon maintains that the objectives of diplomacy cannot be successfully pursued by discarding constitutional interests. Glennon probes in detail the important foreign-policy responsibilities given to Congress by the Constitution and the duty given to the courts of resolving disputes between Congress and the President concerning the power to make foreign policy. He reviews the scope of the prime tools of diplomacy, the war power and the treaty power, and examines the concept of national security. Throughout the work he considers the intricate weave of two legal systems: American constitutional principles and the international law norms that are part of the U.S. domestic legal system.