The Foreign Service Journal, November 2004

F O C U S 44 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 0 4 Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era Ronald D. Asmus, Columbia University Press, 2004, $19.50, paperback, 415 pages. This is an account of the ideas, politics and diplomacy that went into the historic decision to expand NATO to Central and Eastern Europe by a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and Council on Foreign Relations who served as deputy assistant secretary of State for Europe from 1997 to 2000. Opening NATO’s Door has been nominated for the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2004 Book Award. The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace Dennis Ross, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, $35.00, hardcover, 840 pages. “A masterful, riveting, and scrupulously fair account … There are wonderful insights here into the strengths and weaknesses of the numerous players in this drama, including, of course, Arafat, Peres, Barak, Assad, and more obscure but still sig- nificant figures … essential reading for anyone wishing to better understand this seemingly intractable problem,” says Booklist . Dennis Ross was chief Middle East peace negotiator in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Missing Peace has been nominated for the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2004 Book Award. Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy David Paull Nickles, Harvard University Press, 2003, $30.95, hardcover, 265 pages. This lively study of how the new technology of telegraphy transformed diplomacy during the 19th century, based on an examination of three cases from the diplomatic records, is particularly fascinating in light of today’s leap into the cyber age. David Paull Nickles is a historian at the Department of State. Under the Wire has been nominated for the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2004 Book Award. Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Ambassador Robert L. Gallucci, Brookings Institution Press, 2004, $32.95, hardcover, 474 pages. This book gives a detailed account of the difficult negotia- tions of the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1994. Wit, Poneman and Gallucci are among only a handful of American officials who have negotiat- ed with North Korea, and they provide key wisdom for American diplomacy as it once again addresses the consequences of nuclear weapons on the most heavily militarized border in the world: the DMZ dividing North and South Korea. Going Critical has been nominated for the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2003 Book Award. Islam, Politics and Pluralism: Theory and Practice in Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia and Algeria Jennifer Noyon, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2003, $15.95, paperback, 134 pages. “A valuable, accessible and timely introduction to events and movements that lie behind the head- lines of atrocity and terror,” says Islam expert and author Karen Armstrong about Islam, Politics and Pluralism . The author explains why political Islam contributes to democratization in some nations while triggering repression in others. Jennifer Noyon has spent most of her career in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. She is currently INR’s senior analyst for Afghanistan and Nepal. OF RELATED INTEREST…