Some of the stuff relating to Teddy Roosevelt's presidency is interesting, simply because he was projecting the US into what was at the time fairly uncharted territory - foreign policy considerations that didn't tie directly to US continental interests (the old "Manifest Destiny" thing). James Holmes' Theodore Roosevelt and World Order is interesting because he looks at Roosevelt's concepts of the use of force in international affairs. William Tilchin has also done a couple of interesting studies about Roosevelt and foreign policy.
Our pre-Cold War foreign policy has alternated between being reactive to overtly aggressive (Polk and Mexico springs immediately to mind). Quite a bit of it was centered on keeping "foreign interests" out of our self-defined sphere of influence (usually Central America) or preserving our trade access to specific areas (China being the biggest example). There's a fair body of literature springing up about the Mexican-American War, and quite a bit of it is good. In my view it was really Wilson who thrust us on the world stage as the "great savior."
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