"How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. Sometimes we burn with righteous anger, launching foreign wars and deposing governments. Then we retreat -- until the cycle begins again. No matter how often we debate this question, none of what we say is original. Every argument is a pale shadow of the first and greatest debate, which erupted more than a century ago. Its themes resurface every time Americans argue whether to...

A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into foreign adventures that decisively shaped today's world as the Cold War was at its peak.