ABSTRACT
"European political and economic power reached its zenith in the last quarter of the 19th century and the years before the first World War", the economic historian James Foreman-Peck noted not long ago. The near-contradiction in act and interpretation can be resolved if one sees the United States as influencing other nations while not trying to do so. Self-centered, happy to escape the dangerous complications of world politics, it inquired little about foreign reactions to its actions. The European powers assumed America's non-participation and strained amongst themselves to win or keep world power, an objective very far from the American imagination. A doubled struggle characterized the imperialism of the period, the colonizing powers threateningly amongst themselves and, much less overtly, the colonized peoples themselves against their imperial masters. The new century called upon the United States, despite the considerable costs, to participate more actively and responsibly in world affairs.
