Reading History: American Isolationism

In many ways 'isolationalism’ seems a patently misleading concept when applied to the foreign policy of the USA. Clearly the United States was never isolationist in the manner, say, of Tokugawa Japan, deliberately cut off from economic, cultural and religious contacts with the West. Throughout its history the USA has attracted millions of immigrants into an increasingly pluralist society, participated in what became an intense, two-way transatlantic traffic in ideas and culture, and exported primary products and later capital and manufactured goods all over the world.

Some diplomatic historians have focused on this latter theme of commercial expansion, notably exponents of the so-called 'Open Door Interpretation'. This spans a variety of historians but is most closely identified with William Appleman Williams and such works as The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959; rev. ed., Dell, 1972). The basic argument is that the USA developed a distinctive philosophy of a world open to American values, influence and trade, and that this world view, conducive to the interests of American capitalism, has guided US foreign policy.