The Foreign Service Journal, November 2006

he Foreign Service Journal is pleased to present our annual Foreign Service authors round- up in plenty of time for holiday orders. Here is an annotated list of some of the volumes written or edited by Foreign Service personnel and family members, past and present, in 2005 and 2006. This year’s selection contains a substantial policy studies and issues section, a strong history selection, eight novels, a diverse array of works concerning peo- ple and places, and a set of memoirs that vary widely in terms of scope and focus. As in past editions, a sig- nificant portion of our 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 listing of books “of related interest” that were not written by Foreign Service authors. While many of these books are available from bookstores and other sources, we encourage our read- ers to use the AFSA Web site’s Marketplace to place your orders (see p. 71). We have created a bookstore there with links to Amazon.com. For the few books that cannot be ordered through Amazon.com, we have provided alternate links and, when the book is not available online, the necessary contact information. But enough crass commercialism. On to the books! — Susan Maitra, Senior Editor N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 57 POLICY STUDIES AND ISSUES A World Less Safe: Essays on Conflict in the 21st Century Terrell E. Arnold, BookSurge Publishing, 2005, $19.95, paperback, 380 pages. “It is an appalling truth that we entered the 21st century with global conditions as peaceful as they had been at any time in the 20th century, but by the end of the year we were back at war,” the author writes in the introduction to this hard-hitting book. “How we got that way is a striking tale of Ameri- can leadership, its motives and its reactions to the challenges facing the United States.” After the 9/11 attacks, Arnold argues, Washington began a series of global interventions, which included the invasion of Afghanistan, the pre-emptive military attack and occupation of Iraq, torture and other abus- es of prisoners of war, and unequivocal siding with Israel on Palestine issues. In his view, these decisions have “made the world less safe.” I N T HEIR O WN W RITE W E ARE PLEASED TO FEATURE OUR ANNUAL COMPILATION OF RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS BY F OREIGN S ERVICE - AFFILIATED AUTHORS . T