The Foreign Service Journal, October 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2019 49 Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era Joseph A. Fry, University Press of Kentucky, 2019, $60/hardcover, 256 pages. The American Civil War was not only a tumultuous time for the country domesti- cally, but also for its conduct of foreign relations. In this illuminating account, Joseph A. Fry describes how President Abraham Lincoln worked with his Secretary of State, WilliamHenry Seward, to manage the uniquely difficult challenge of conducting the foreign affairs of a divided nation. Deftly navigating rapacious European powers, Seward went so far as to threaten war against any nation that intervened in the Civil War, helping secure a conclusive Union victory. Joseph A. Fry is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of Dixie Looks Abroad: The South and U.S. Foreign Relations, 1789–1973 (2002); Debating Vietnam: Fulbright, Stennis, and Their Senate Hearings (2006); and The American South and the VietnamWar: Belligerence, Protest, and Agony in Dixie (2015). Megaphone Bureaucracy Dennis C. Grube, Princeton University Press, 2019, $29.95/hardcover, 232 pages. Our bureaucratic leaders are increasingly having to govern under the scrutiny of a 24-hour news cycle, hyperpartisan politi- cal oversight and a restless populace that is increasingly distrustful of the people who govern them. In this timely and incisive book, Dennis C. Grube draws on in-depth interviews and compelling case studies to argue that a new style of bureaucratic leadership is emerging: one that marries the robust independence of Washington agency heads with the prudent political neutrality of Westminster civil servants. These “Washminster” leaders do not avoid the public gaze, nor do they overtly court political controversy. Rather, they use their increas- ingly public pulpits to exert their own brand of persuasive power. Dennis C. Grube is a lecturer in public policy at the University of Cambridge. A former political speechwriter, he is the author of Prime Ministers and Rhetorical Governance (2013) and At the Margins of Victorian Britain: Politics, Immorality and Britishness in the Nineteenth Century (1961). Nikita Khrushchev’s Journey into America Lawrence J. Nelson and Matthew G. Schoenbachler, University Press of Kansas, 2019, $25/hardcover, 216 pages. When Nikita Khrushchev became the first Russian leader to tour America in 1959, he witnessed a country in the midst of unrivaled prosperity just as the possibility of Cold War–era nuclear annihilation was permeating the public consciousness. Nikita Khrushchev’s Journey into America looks to fully explore the Russian leader’s visit as a critical moment in U.S. history, arguing that it can be understood as one of the most democratic events in an era swept up in great power competition between ideological foes. Matthew G. Schoenbachler is a professor of history at the University of North Alabama and is the author of Murder and Madness: The Myth of the Kentucky Tragedy (2011). His co-author, the late Lawrence J. Nelson, was a professor at the University of North Alabama and the author of King Cotton’s Advocate: Oscar G. Johnston and the New Deal (1999). Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power, and Persistence Wendy R. Sherman, PublicAffairs, 2018, $28/hardcover, 256 pages. On the forefront of some of the most consequential negotiations in recent diplomatic history, Wendy R. Sherman has amassed a wealth of unique foreign policy experience as a high-level State Department political appointee during the Clinton and Obama administrations. Her straightforward delivery makes this mem- oir a heady and entertaining read. From humble beginnings as a social worker, she rose to top positions in the private and public sector, once quipping: “I joke that I remain a community organizer. …My caseload just changed.” Sherman served as lead negotiator for the historic Iran nuclear deal, as North Korea policy coordinator and as under secretary of State for political affairs, among other positions. Wendy R. Sherman is currently a professor of public lead- ership and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and senior counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group.