In 1941, the publisher Henry Luce predicted the coming of what he called the “American Century.”  According to Luce, the time had arrived for Americans “to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation of the world and in consequence to assert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such means as we see fit.”  In the decades that followed, many Americans enthusiastically accepted this challenge and the remaining decades of the twentieth century bore witness to their efforts to realize this goal.  But what have been the consequences for the United States, and the world, in the “present”?  While much of the attention directed toward U.S. foreign policy in the last several years has been focused on the “War on Terrorism,” a vast number of other significant issues in the twenty-first century also present the United States with challenges and opportunities.  While not ignoring the “War on Terrorism,” this course also will examine some of the other areas of policy as a means of assessing the current global status of the United States and providing insight regarding its “path to the future.”