Faith and Foreign Affairs in the American Century

The United States has led the world economically, culturally, politically, and militarily following World War I. In 1941, Life magazine publisher Henry Luce dubbed his country’s preeminence “the American Century.” His editorial was a statement of fact but also an aspiration for his countrymen to unite in promotion of a world order friendly to American interests. Faith and Foreign Affairs in the American Century examines the nature of public involvement in American diplomacy. As a concept decades in the making, the American Century was conceived by and for those connected through the country’s leading foreign policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. This book also studies Washington insiders Francis and Helen Miller, who fought to make the American empire a radically democratic one. The Millers’ many partnerships embodied the conflicts as well as the cooperation of Christianity and secularism in the long reimagining of the United States as a global power. Mark Thomas Edwards draws upon personal, family, and group experiences to rethink the nature of public involvement in diplomacy. The book is a genealogy of the idea of the American Century. It is also a political-religious history of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Millers, and readers will encounter moments of Protestant Christian power and weakness in the making of modern American foreign relations.