First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power

Len's Summary: The author was a Foreign Service officer, our last Ambassador to Yugoslavia. He passed away in 2003. Zimmermann analyses America’s emergence onto the world stage through the careers of five friends and political allies: Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge. All but Mahan (a naval officer) were involved in national politics. the firm basis for the internationally activist administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and their successors that marked the American Century. Stongly Recommended.