American Diplomacy

A globe-spanning thriller of love and betrayal about a mysterious first lady with an explosive secret. Paris, 1974. Lara Orlov and her family arrive from Moscow at the height of the Cold War, thanks to her father’s position as a diplomat. The years pass, and Lara becomes more and more enamored...

A deeply researched international history and "exemplary study" (New York Times Book Review) of how a divided world ended and our present world was fashioned, as the world drifts toward another great time of choosing. Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza...

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way."

This program is read by the author. A revealing, dramatic, deeply personal audiobook about the most significant events of our time, by the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Nikki Haley is widely admired for her forthright manner (“With all due respect, I don’t get...

From the only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from Iraq, here is the riveting account of ordinary people caught between the struggles of nations. Determined to offer an unfiltered version of events, the Washington Post's Anthony Shadid was neither embedded with soldiers nor...

Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries' attempts at democracy.

A vivid account of the rivalry between future president William Henry Harrison and the Shawnee chief Tecumseh—and of the Native American alliance that fought westward expansion—from the New York Times bestselling author of Astoria “Taut, multi-layered . . . a much-needed reevaluation of...

Missionary Diplomacy illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power.

In this examination of Union and Confederate foreign relations during the Civil War, from both European and American perspectives, Howard Jones demonstrates that the consequences of the conflict between North and South reached far beyond American soil.

From the #1 bestselling author of Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys, a startling new look at the events that set the stage for WWII. In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the...

Rethinking American Grand Strategy assembles a roster of leading historians to examine America's place in the world. Its innovative chapters reexamine familiar figures, such as John Quincy Adams, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger, while also revealing the forgotten episodes and hidden voices of American grand strategy. They expand the scope of diplomatic and military history by placing the grand strategies of public health, race, gender, humanitarianism, and the law alongside military and diplomatic affairs to reveal hidden strategists as well as strategies.

Here is a stunning and provocative guide to the future of international relations—a system for managing global problems beyond the stalemates of business versus government, East versus West, rich versus poor, democracy versus authoritarianism, free markets versus state capitalism. Written by...

Schmitz illuminates how the policies FDR pursued in response to the crises of the 1930s transformed Americans' thinking about their place in the world. He shows how the president developed an interlocking set of ideas that prompted a debate between isolationism and preparedness, guided the United States into World War II, and mobilized support for the war while establishing a sense of responsibility for the postwar world.

An Independent Empire shows how foreign policy and diplomacy constitute a truly national story, necessary for understanding the history of the United States. In this lively and well-written book, episodes in American history - such as the writing and ratification of the Constitution, Henry Clay's advocacy of an American System, Pinckney's Treaty with Spain, and the visionary but absurd Congress of Panama - are recast as elemental aspects of United States foreign and security policy.

An award-winning historian reveals the harrowing, little-known story of an American effort to save the newly formed Soviet Union from disaster. After decades of the Cold War and renewed tensions, in the wake of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, cooperation between the United States and...

What should our global strategy look like in an age of renewed great power competition? And what must America offer to a newly empowered developing world when we're no longer the only major player? In The American Imperative, international development expert Daniel Runde makes the case for building a new global consensus through vigorous internationalism and the judicious use of soft power.

If you ever wondered who becomes an American ambassador and why, this is the book for you. This updated and revised edition of Jett’s classic book not only provides a timely overview of American ambassadorship for Foreign Service Officers, aspiring diplomats, and interested citizens, but also calls for much-needed reform, describing the dire implications of failing to change our ambassadorial appointments process for the future of American diplomatic practice and foreign policy.

It is an explosive true story of survival, betrayal, and the moment America lost its grip on the Middle East. On November 4, 1979, 52 Americans were taken hostage inside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, an act that stunned the world and sparked a 444-day standoff that shattered U.S. diplomacy and changed global politics forever. In this pulse-pounding narrative, acclaimed historian Davis Truman pulls back the curtain on the backroom deals, psychological torment, and international missteps that defined one of the longest hostage crises in modern history.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography comes a sweeping yet intimate story of the most influential humanitarian you’ve never heard of—Bob Gersony, who spent four decades in crisis zones around the world. “One of the best accounts examining American...

70 years on the throne. 13 American presidents. One extraordinary queen. From the moment she first enchanted the world as a youthful princess, Queen Elizabeth II found a unique place in American hearts—and she also played an unprecedented role in forging transatlantic ties. Over her...