To Shape Our World for Good: Master Narratives and Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1900-2011

Why does the United States pursue robust military invasions to change some foreign regimes but not others? Conventional accounts focus on geopolitics or elite ideology. C. William Walldorf, Jr., argues that the politics surrounding two broad, public narratives—the liberal narrative and the restraint narrative—often play a vital role in shaping...