The Foreign Service Journal, November 2010

bers in 2009 and 2010. The roundup was assembled with the vital assistance of editorial interns Laura Caton and Mohammad Alhinnawi. This year’s selection contains very strong history and memoir sections, a weighty and wide-ranging policy and issues section, six works of fiction and poetry, three dif- ferent reference works and a volume of photography. As in the past several years, many of the titles are self- published. Our primary purpose in compiling this list is to cel- ebrate the wealth of literary talent within the Foreign Service community, and to give our readers the oppor- tunity to support colleagues by sampling their wares. Each entry contains full publication data along with a short commentary. As has become our custom, we also include a list of books “of related interest” that were not written by FS authors. Although many of these books are available else- where, we encourage our readers to use the AFSAWeb site’s online bookstore to place your orders. (See the box on p. 47.) The AFSA Bookstore has links to Ama- zon and, at no extra cost to you, each book sold there generates a small royalty for AFSA. For the few books that cannot be ordered through Amazon, we have pro- vided alternative links or, when the book is not available online, the necessary contact information. But enough crass commercialism. On to the books! — Susan Maitra, Senior Editor HISTORY Inside the Iranian Revolution John D. Stempel, The Clark Group, 2009, $32.95, paperback, 392 pages. Inside the Iranian Revolution gives a Foreign Service officer’s perspective on a turning point in Middle East history. John Stem- pel spent four years in Iran, from 1975 to 1979, and saw the changes and unrest that sparked the uprising. In this work, originally published in 1981, he gives a general overview of Iranian history in addition to his personal recollections of the revolution. Stemple covers Iran’s 20th-century history — including relations with the U.S. — leading up to the revolution and the overthrow of the shah, as well as the country’s trajectory following these political changes. It may be hard to imagine, but less than 35 years ago, before the revolution, Washington and Tehran were close allies and President Jimmy Carter called Iran “an oasis of stability in a sea of uncertainty.” Stempel details exchanges among U.S. and Iranian officials and chron- icles American missteps that undermined the shah’s le- gitimacy at a time of mass protests and violence in the streets. A sizable chunk of the book deals with the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran — which, fortunately for Stempel, happened after he left the country. A career FSO from 1965 to 1988, John Stempel served as a political officer in Tehran for four years (1975-1979). Today he is a senior professor of interna- tional relations at the University of Kentucky, where he has served as director of the Patterson School of Diplo- macy and International Commerce. Czechoslovakia: The State that Failed Mary Heimann, Yale University Press, 2009, $45, hardcover, 432 pages. Following its declaration of in- dependence in October 1918, the state of Czechoslovakia lasted for only 74 years, shorter than the av- erage American’s lifetime. In Czechoslovakia: The State that Failed , Mary Heimann creates a “definitive politi- cal history” of the country. She begins by chronicling the disparate groups living in the five former Habsburg territories — Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Subcarpathian Ruthenia and Slovakia — which ultimately coalesced into Czechoslovakia. What follows is an absorbing account of three-quarters of a century. Heimann overturns the conventional view of Czechoslovakia as “a plucky little country” that was unfortunate enough to feel the brunt of Hitler and Stalin’s machinations; instead, she argues that the coun- try was “not just the victim but also a perpetrator of in- tolerant nationalism.” Whether readers agree with Heimann or not, her book provides an engaging and original perspective on Czechoslovakian history and serves as a warning “as to how easily a nationalist outlook … can lead perfectly or- dinary, decent people from liberal democracy to the po- lice state.” Mary Heimann is the daughter of the late FSO John P. Heimann. She attended Vassar College and the Uni- versity of Oxford and is currently a senior lecturer in 16 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0