Jussi M. Hanhimaki offers students and scholars a survey of the evolution of American foreign policy during a key period in recent history, the era of superpower detente and global transformation in the 1960s and 1970s. Describing detente as not only an era but also a strategy of waging the Cold War, Hanhimaki examines the reasons that led to the rise of detente, explores the highlights of the era's reduced East-West tensions, and explains the causes of detente's demise.