Critical Thinking Questions

16. Describe the United States’ movement from isolationism to expansion-mindedness in the final decades of the nineteenth century. What ideas and philosophies underpinned this transformation?

17. What specific forces or interests transformed the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world between 1865 and 1890?

18. How did Taft’s “dollar diplomacy” differ from Roosevelt’s “big stick” policy? Was one approach more or less successful than the other? How so?

19. What economic and political conditions had to exist for Taft’s “dollar diplomacy” to be effective?

20. What factors conspired to propel the United States to emerge as a military and economic powerhouse prior to World War II?