"Many Americans are bewildered by the hostilities and even hatred toward the United States on the part of newly independent Third World nations. Experienced diplomat and scholar David D. Newsom seeks to understand these animosities in this thoughtful review of U.S. relations with the Third World since World War II. The Imperial Mantle traces the upheavals in the postwar era as the peoples of British, Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese empires demanded and gained independence.

As the most powerful leader of the free world, despite its anti-colonial heritage, the United States tended to inherit the imperial mantle in this period, becoming the focus of both expectations and demands from the new nations. How the United States lived up to these expectations, and how it responded to the challenge of world leadership and the burdens of being the dominant world power, are the central issues in this book.

It is must reading for anyone who wants to understand the foreign policy challenges that America will face in the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.