Book excerpt: The Atlanticists is the first major historical study to re-examine the American-European partnership with an emphasis on the personalities behind the policy. Historian Kenneth Weisbrode explores how a network of diplomats and politicians imagined, carefully constructed, and sustained the strong system of European alliances we recognize today. In these policymakers' vision--well-known figures as Dean Acheson, W. Averell Harriman, and Henry Kissinger--America and Europe were part of a single cooperative transatlantic community. In today's fractious world, The Atlanticists is both timely and telling.