America’s 250th anniversary may have passed, but history doesn’t have an expiration date, especially for educators with a curriculum to teach. Whether you’re looking to mark this summer’s milestone with your students or simply to add fresh primary source content to your history classes, Teaching 250 Years of US Foreign Policy can help.
Informed by the foreign policy experts at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and designed for classroom use, these free nonpartisan resources from CFR Education help educators facilitate critical analysis of how the United States has engaged with the rest of the world over the last 250 years.
The full suite of resources includes a timeline of essential moments in US foreign policy and five collections of primary source documents, beginning with the early republic and culminating with post–cold war engagement with China.
Take a peek at what’s inside:
- A comprehensive timeline of essential moments in US foreign policy
- A collection on the Early Republic (1793–1796)
- A collection on US Overseas Expansion (1893–1901)
- A collection on the Interwar Period (1919–1939)
- A collection on the Cold War (1946–1954)
- A collection on Post–Cold War Engagement with China (1989–2000)
Explore how these curated primary source documents support deeper historical inquiry, how each collection aligns with state and national standards, how the discussion activities bring history to life in the classroom, and how the themes across the five collections connect directly to the issues shaping our world today.
Two hundred fifty years is long enough to see patterns emerge, history repeat, and values get tested. These resources not only teach students about history; they also challenge students to think beyond what’s on the page and make real-world connections.