The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire

The bestselling author of The Brothers and Boiling Point brings to life the forgotten political debate that set America’s interventionist course in the world for the twentieth century and beyond.

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 ...