The Contours of American History

William Appleman Williams was the American history profession’s greatest critic of US imperialism. The Contours of American History , first published in 1961, reached back into British history to argue that the relationship between liberalism and empire was in effect a grand compromise, with expansion abroad containing class and race tensions at home. Coming as it did before the political explosions of the 1960s, Williams’s message was a deeply heretical one, and yet the Modern Library ultimatel