attention of historians and have aroused considerable debate. Initially, histo-
rians focused on the rejection of the League of Nations and the pursuit of an
"unentangled course," declaring that Wilsonian idealism and international-
ism were defeated in 1920: isolationism prevailed during the interwar years. ³
Beginning in the 1960s, revisionists attempted to undermine the simplicity of
that dialectic. Led by William A. Williams, analysts challenged the consensus
interpretation. They produced a body of work that attacked the isolationist
framework, asserting that the failure to consider economic activity produced
an analysis that was far too narrow to explain the framework of U.S. foreign
policy. ⁴

However, this analysis too produced critics. As Melvin Leffler noted in the
preface to his work, "Too frequently, accounts of this period have tended to
highlight either the politically isolationist elements of American foreign policy
or the economically expansionist aspirations of American officeholders and
business. Such a dichotomy simplifies rather than clarifies reality." ⁵ Studies of
the 1920s by Joan Hoff, Carl Parini, Michael Hogan, Melvin Leffler, Frank
Costigliola, and Emily Rosenberg examined specific elements of interwar policy
within this context, moving beyond the "Open Door Thesis" to "independent
internationalist," "liberal-developmentalism," and then on toward a corpo-
ratist analysis of private-public cooperation and extensive international ac-
tivity. ⁶ Concurrently, this revisionism has been supplemented by research that
approaches the issue from another perspective. Work by Warren Kuehl, Charles
Chatfield, Sondra Hermann, Charles DeBennedetti, and Harriet Hyman
Alonso grapple with new definitions and interpretations of internationalism,
far from dead in the interwar era. ⁷ This book contributes to that corpus of
work, focusing on the people who called themselves "internationalists," nar-
rating their activities and exploring their diversity.

This diversity, whose historic roots were fully explored in Seeking World
Order, presents historians of internationalism and pacificism with significant
problems of definition. The internationalists remained such a divided com-
munity that they are difficult to identify. Indeed, the only meaningful distinc-
tion between themselves and their opponents has to do with the divergence in
American views over the means of achieving the shared goal of a stable, peaceful
world order. Viewed from this perspective, one concludes that international-
ists believed in the probability of (and, for many, mankind's general inclina-
tion toward) world peace based on cooperation, education, and a variety of
collective efforts. Only through collaboration could people hope to live in a
stable, peaceful world. Global interdependence was a reality that must be
embraced. National leaders had to move beyond the balance of power diplo-
macy -- traditional statecraft -- which had produced nationalistic rivalries
buttressed by economic competition and barriers, and create a system built
on cooperation. Despite their very real and significant divisions, internation-
alists shared a tendency to see world peace and cooperation as both a vital

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