Book excerpt: American Foreign Policy to 1899 is the first of two volumes on American foreign policy in Ashbrook's series of core document volumes covering major periods, themes, and institutions in American history and government. This volume covers America's foreign relations from the early republic through the nation's rise to great-power status. Its companion volume will cover events of the twentieth century, as well as the attack on September 11. This volume presents such cornerstones of American foreign policy as Washington's Farewell Address and the Monroe Doctrine, but it also covers some of the less well-known practices and incidents of the nineteenth century. The similarities between the issues and practices presented in this volume and those of the twentieth century-during the Cold War, for example-are striking.