Here is a panorama of fifty years of United States foreign policy as viewed by the country’s leading cartoonists. On their drawing boards, they daily recorded the tragedies and triumphs of Uncle Sam as he emerged from the isolationism of the post-World War I period to assume his present role of world leadership.

Here, too, is a panorama of many of the best cartoonists of the period — both well-known contemporaries (like Herblock, Mauldin, Fischetti and Batchelor) and those whose names were bywords between the wars (including Kirby, Orr, McCutcheon, Gropper, Ding and Fitzpatrick).

A brief text weaves the cartoons into a witty and informative narrative that incisively captures the history of a half-century. With the great issues and debates that shaped our policies clearly depicted, America’s role on the world stage emerges in unique perspective.