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Over the last quarter millennium, the United States of America has been the most successful state in world politics. It has had the world’s largest economy since 1870, and was on the winning side of the three great world struggles of the 20th century. During these struggles, the fate of liberal capitalist democracy in the world has been closely connected with the rise and success of the USA. This course examines the rise and impacts of the USA in comparative and international perspective. What factors account for the success of the USA during the late modern era? How has the rise and influence of the USA shaped world politics? The course focuses on the causes, consequences and possible alternatives of three founding moments (1776-88, 1861-67 and 1933-36), the role of wars against illiberal adversaries in strengthening American liberal national identity, the ways in which the internal logics of the Philadelphian states-union (1787-1861) and the liberal international order among advanced industrial democracies (1945-) as alternatives to Westphalian state-systems, the role and consequences of the US as an anti-imperial power, and the internal dual between liberal America dedicated to the Founding principles and an ‘alt-America’ of slavery and white supremacy.