This is a manual that de-centers the United States from the preeminent position it often occupies in international relations scholarship and discourse. At the same time, it connects the United States in all but the last chapter with some of the world’s smallest sovereign countries. The nature of the connection varies from trade to immigration to socioeconomic likeness to the challenges of grandiose visions. The last chapter departs from the small sovereign country focus to bringing the American land back to center, but this time the center is the vast number of indigenous nations that occupied the United States before it was given that name. This chapter brings the narrative full circle by including among the indigenous references Alaska and Hawaii, with the latter echoing the first chapter’s focus on the South Pacific region with a different topic.

The seven chapters that comprise this manual are organized such that instructors can excerpt one or all seven, either as part of a workshop, capstone, or special topics seminar devoted to the overall theme, or as elements of a basic introductory course in international relations, comparative politics, U.S. government and politics, or in political science more generally.

The narrative starts from what is probably the farthest point from the US geographically— the South Pacific. Although the US and the South Pacific have had a long and at times tumultuous relationship, including periods of warfare, nuclear testing and the admission of Hawaii as the 50th state in 1959, phosphate has not traditionally been part of that relationship. Yet, phosphate is as familiar to Americans as to other populations, though from a different source. This combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar is an auspicious place to start a journey that aims to de-center the United States without omitting it altogether. This focus on the South Pacific and phosphate epitomizes a leitmotif among many regarding relationships to other countries: often superficial familiarity masks a deeper lack of awareness about the complexity surrounding territory, people, and products and services.