The American Mission and the 'Evil Empire'

David S. Foglesong is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is the author of America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: US Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920 (1995).

'Foglesong's exposé of Americans' 'heady sense of their country's unique blessings' helps make sense of the giddiness, followed by rank disillusionment, vis-à-vis the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s and 2000s.' Stephen Kotkin, Prospect Magazine

• Introduction; 1. 'Free Russia': origins of the First Crusade, 1881–1905; 2. 'The United States of Russia': culmination and frustration, 1905–20; 3. Doors open and closed: opportunities and obstructions in early Soviet Russia, 1921–40; 4. Revival: hopes for a new Russia during the Grand Alliance, 1941–5; 5. Visions of 'liberation', 1946–53; 6. Evolution, not revolution: the eclipse of 'liberation' and the pursuit of 'liberalization', 1954–74; 7. Recovering the faith: renewal of the Crusade, 1974–80; 8. The Reagan mission and the 'evil empire', 1981–9; 9. Mission unaccomplished: America and post-Soviet Russia; Epilogue.