Michael Schwarz deftly analyzes early US foreign policy concerns. In addition to his treatment of competing strategists Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson, he carefully outlines the negotiating position of British envoy George Hammond and lays out the urgent issues that divided the United States and Britain in the period preceding John Jay’s controversial mission to London. This lively study ably chronicles the posturing, predations, and power plays of all those who refused to take their eyes off a host of commercial and territorial claims in the 1790s and beyond.