Professor McDougall spoke about his book, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776, which discusses the history of major doctrines of U.S. foreign policy. He divides diplomatic relations with foreign nations into different categories and argues that the federal government should rethink its humanitarian aid efforts because, if the government cannot even clean up its inner cities, it cannot help other countries such as Somalia. He also believes that a certain confusion has existed in American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. In 1986, Professor McDougall won the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age.