Soon after the American Revolution, certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation's political philosophy and material realities.

Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history's major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America's stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.

"Important and comprehensive study of America's relations with the region." - New York Times Book Review

"Green set about filling [a] gap in the literature and he has succeeded triumphantly. His book is likely to become the standard work on the subject." - Financial Times

"With rich historical records and insightful analysis, this is a fascinating, most useful reference for students and scholars of US-Asia relations and American foreign policy." - Choice

"[An] essential guide to understanding U.S. policy in Asia." - Foreign Affairs

"Rich and ambitious history of US strategic thinking toward Asia" - Los Angeles Review of Books

"By More Than Providence provides the greatest value in illustrating how the draw of the Asia-Pacific has been an enduring influence in the United States for nearly two-and-a-half centuries." - Journal of American-East Asian Relations

"Green brings scholarly and policymaking credentials to this tour d’horizon." - Imperial & Global Forum

"A brilliant and highly readable history of America's evolving grand strategy toward Asia and the Pacific since 1783." - Asian Review of Books

"By More than Providence is a gold mine of richly documented historical detail, informed by international relations theory, and enlivened by the hands-on policymaker’s nose for bureaucratic turf battles, clashing personalities, and Washington intrigue. . . . The Asia-Pacific has long loomed large in American strategic thinking and today its centrality is unparalleled. By More than Providence provides a sweep, power, and coherence that anchors that centrality historically." - Journal of East Asian Studies

"In examining U.S. grand strategy toward the Asia Pacific, he has produced a grand synthesis." - Journal of American History