AFSA-Recommended Reading

In This Section

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All books are alphabetized by title. An asterisk indicates a Foreign Service author.

Subcategories:

18th and 19th Century History

The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance (Caravan Book)

Michael H. Hunt

The Congress of Vienna / A Study in Allied Unity: 1812-1822

Harold George Nicolson

John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy

Samuel Flagg Bemis

This book appears to be out of print; used copies may be available. Also check your local library.

Toussaint's Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution (Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Book)

Gordon S. Brown *

Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History

Richard B. Parker *

20th Century History

The Cold War: A New History

John Lewis Gaddis

In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

Robert McNamara

Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam

Mark Bowden

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

Margaret Olwen Macmillan

Peacemaking, 1919

Harold George Nicolson

Romania Versus the United States: Diplomacy of the Absurd 1985-1989

Roger Kirk and Mircea Raceanu

Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power

Howard K. Beale

The Ugly American

William J. Lederer

Vietnam and Beyond: A Diplomat's Cold War Education (Modern Southeast Asia Series)

Robert H. Miller *

Diplomacy Theory and Practice

American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays

Edited by John Ikenberry

Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy

Charles Freeman *

A Dictionary of Diplomacy, Second Edition

G.R. Berridge and Alan Jones

Diplomacy

Sir Harold Nicolson

Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, Fourth Edition

G.R. Berridge

Diplomacy Under a Foreign Flag: When Nations Break Relations

Edited by David D. Newsom

This book appears to be out of print; used copies may be available. Also check your local library.

Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work, The Essential Guide to the Foreign Service, 3rd Edition

Edited by Shawn Dorman *

Inside an Embassy: The Political Role of Diplomats Abroad

Robert Hopkins Miller et al.

Negotiating Across Cultures: International Communication in an Interdependent World

Raymond Cohen

A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22

Henry Kissinger

Diplomatic Biographies

Chester Bowles: New Dealer in Cold War (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy)

Howard B. Schaffer

Defiant Diplomacy: Henrik Kauffmann, Denmark, and the United States in World War II and Cold War, 1939-1958 (Studies in Modern European History, Vol. 54)

Bo Lidegaard

Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk (Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Series)

Howard B. Schaffer *

Diplomatic Memoirs

American Diplomats: The Foreign Service at Work

Edited by Charles Stuart Kennedy * and William D. Morgan *

Behind Embassy Walls: The Life And Times Of An American Diplomat

Brandon Grove *

Diplomacy (A Touchstone book)

Henry Kissinger

Foreign at Home and Away: Foreign-born Wives in the U.S. Foreign Service

Margaret Bender

In Those Days: A Diplomat Remembers (Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Series)

James W. Spain

Memoirs 1925-1950

George Kennan *

Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace

Edward J. Perkins *

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Dean Acheson

Realities of Foreign Service Life, vol. 2

Edited by Particia Linderman and Brayer Hess *

The White House Years

Henry Kissinger

Years of Renewal

Henry Kissinger

Years of Upheaval

Henry Kissinger

Economics, Trade, and Commerce

Business Solutions for the Global Poor: Creating Social and Economic Value

V. Kasturi Rangan

Commercial Diplomacy and the National Interest

Harry W. Kopp *

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

Jeffrey Sachs

Financial Statecraft: The Role of Financial Markets in American Foreign Policy (Council on Foreign Relations/Brookings Institution Books)

Benn Steil and Robert E. Litan

The Rise and Fall Of The Great Powers - Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000

Paul Kennedy

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

Thomas L. Friedman

Global Issues

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

Moises Naim

Islam: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles)

Karen Armstrong

The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime

William Langewiesche

Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet, Enlarged Edition

Richard Elliot Benedick

Strategy for Stable Peace: Toward a Euroatlantic Security Community

James E. Goodby, Dmitri Trenin and Petrus Buwalda with Yves Pagniez *

Leadership and Management

Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today's Transformational Leaders

Dean Anderson

Crisis Leadership: Using Military Lessons, Organizational Experiences, and the Power of Influence to Lessen the Impact of Chaos on the People You Lead

Gene Klann

Developing Executive Talent: Best Practices from Global Leaders (J-B Foreign Imprint Series - EMEA)

Jonathan Smilansky

The Effective Executive (Classic Drucker Collection)

Peter Drucker

Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers

Richard E. Neustadt and Earnest R. May

Post 1989 History

Losing the Golden Hour: An Insider's View of Iraq's Reconstruction

James Stephenson *

The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military

Dana Priest

Public Diplomacy

America's Dialogue with the World

Edited by William P. Kiehl *

Communicating with the World: U. S. Public Diplomacy Overseas (Martin F. Herz Series on United States Diplomacy)

Hans N. Tuch

Digital Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Information Age

Wilson P. Dizard *

Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the U.S. Information Agency

Wilson P. Dizard *

Soft Power: The Means To Success In World Politics

Joseph Nye

Science, Technology, and Industry

Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences

National Research Council (U.S.)

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

Alex Steffen

U.S. Diplomatic and Consular History

The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service, 1776-1914 (Contributions in American History)

Charles Stuart Kennedy *

The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Volume 1, The Creation of a Republican Empire, 1776-1865

Edited by William I. Cohen

The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913, vol. 2

Edited by William I. Cohen

The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Volume 3, The Globalizing of America, 1913-1945

Edited by William I. Cohen

The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Volume 4, America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945-1991

Edited by William I. Cohen

Dangerous Nation: America's Foreign Policy from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Vintage)

Robert Kagan

The Department of State: A History of Its Organization, Procedure and Personnel

Charles Stuart Kennedy *

This book appears to be out of print; used copies may be available. Also check your local library.

"Emperor Dead" and Other Historic American Diplomatic Dispatches (Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Series)

Peter D. Eicher

The Return of History and the End of Dreams (Vintage)

Robert Kagan

U.S. Foreign Policy and International Relations

America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked

Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes

The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the Twenty-First Century

Michael Mandelbaum

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Samuel Huntington

Colossus: The Price of America's Empire

Niall Ferguson

First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power

Warren Zimmerman *

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World

Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart

The Opportunity: America's Moment to Alter History's Course

Richard Haass

Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776

Walter A. McDougall

Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World

Walter Russell Mead

The United Nations, Iran, and Iraq: How Peacemaking Changed (An Institute for the Study of Diplomacy)

Cameron R. Hume

Untying the Afghan Knot: Negotiating Soviet Withdrawal

Riaz Khan