In this much-anticipated exploration of global politics in the post-cold war world, John Gerard Ruggie presents a compelling vision of American foreign policy into the next century, at once historically grounded, theoretically informed and eminently practical.

In an age when anti-communist alliance-building no longer sustains American engagement in support of a stable world order, what goal can act as the guiding principle of this nation's foreign policy? Ruggie cautions that a combination of unilateral case-by-case accounting of American interests abroad, an "all-or-nothing" military doctrine, and the domestic insecurity bred by the forces of globalization are likely to tilt the U.S. foreign policy toward neo-isolationism.

Winning the Peace persuasively argues for an alternative agenda. Ruggie builds on the strategies that America's leaders had designed to maintain international stability before the cold war broke out, calling for the promotion of cooperative security relations, economic multilateralism, and a new domestic social contract.

This timely, provocative book contends that, in order to succeed in a continued international leadership role, America must come to grips again with a fundamental challenge of self-definition: what it is and what it ought to become as a nation.