The Foreign Service Journal, October 2011

O C T O B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 Below is the annotated list of some of the volumes written or edited by Foreign Service personnel and fam- ily members in 2010 and 2011. The roundup was as- sembled with the vital assistance of editorial interns Asa Maclay Horner and Danielle Derbes. This year’s selection contains very strong history and memoir sections, a weighty and wide-ranging policy and issues section, eight works of fiction and poetry, and five titles geared for young readers. As in the past several years, many of the titles are self-published. Our primary purpose in compiling this list is to cele- brate 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” to diplomats that were not written by FS authors. Once again, although many of these books are avail- able elsewhere, we encourage our readers to use the AFSA Web site’s online bookstore to place your orders. The AFSA Bookstore has links to www.Amazon.com and, at no extra cost to you, each book sold there gener- ates a small royalty for AFSA (see p. 43). For the few books that cannot be ordered through Amazon, we have provided alternative links or, when the book is not available online, the necessary contact infor- mation. But enough crass commercialism. On to the books! — Susan Maitra, Senior Editor HISTORY The Colonels’ Coup and the American Embassy: A Diplomat’s View of the Breakdown of Democracy in Cold War Greece Robert V. Keeley, Penn State University Press, 2011, $74.95, hardcover, 304 pages. In The Colonels’ Coup , retired FSO Robert Keeley gives his readers a first-hand account from the political section of Embassy Athens during the April 21, 1967, coup that overthrew the Greek government and ushered in seven years of military rule. A significant event in the ColdWar, the coup resulted in the roundup of approximately 8,000 people associated with the Communist Party by the new, right-wing military government. Keeley sheds light on how U.S. policy toward Greece was formulated and implemented from 1966 to 1969. By contrast with its involvement in several other coups during the ColdWar, the United States was caught unaware as the so-called colonels’ coup unfolded. Keeley had wanted to become more familiar with the group of officers behind it, but was discouraged by his superiors. Robert V. Keeley spent extensive periods in Greece — first, with his father, FSO James Keeley, who served as counselor at Embassy Athens when Robert was a child. Robert himself served as a political officer at the same post from 1966 to 1969, and returned to finish off his 33-year Foreign Service career as U.S. ambassador to Greece from 1985 to 1989. From 1990 to 1995, he was president of the Middle East Institute. He is currently chairman of the Council for the National Interest Foundation. The Colonels’ Coup is part of the ADST-DACORDiplo- mats and Diplomacy Series. (See the June FSJ for a full review.) The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts and the Failures of Great Powers Peter Tomsen, Public Affairs, 2011, $39.99, hardcover, 912 pages. In this timely and exhaustively re- searched work, Peter Tomsen sheds new light on the troubled history of Afghanistan and the countries that have tried to impose order on that remote and deadly re- gion. Drawing on two decades of experience developing relationships with Afghan leaders, warlords, Taliban mem- bers and influential religious figures, with special emphasis on his tenure as U.S. special envoy to the Afghan resistance from 1989 to 1992, Tomsen offers invaluable perspectives on hundreds of recently declassified documents relating to the Afghanistan engagement. This book presents crucial insights into Afghanistan’s his- tory as a “shatter zone” for foreign invaders, and how that experience and the tribal nature of Afghan society have shaped the narrative of a continual cycle of warfare, into which the United States has been ever more deeply drawn. Tomsen also discusses the misinformed operations con- ducted there by the foreign intelligence services of Russia, Pakistan and the U.S. C OVER S TORY