The Foreign Service Journal, November 2006

his country and the Soviet Union, organized a humanitarian effort to rescue starving children in the terrible Russian famine of 1921-1923. Hibben, the son of a well-to-do Midwestern family and a distin- guished graduate of Princeton and Harvard, was an “astonishing American” to the Russians. In honor of his courage and selflessness, he was given a hero’s burial in Moscow alongside the Russian masters of arts, letters and sciences. This inspiring biography is a tribute to Hibben’s achievements — the “sheer scope and drama of his adventures” and the magnitude of his humanitarian efforts. Stuart G. Hibben is a retired civil servant, Navy veteran of World War II, and a Princeton graduate. In spite of frequent travels abroad as the spouse of a career American diplomat, he finished this account for publication in 15 years. Divide and Perish: The Geopolitics of the Middle East Curtis F. Jones, AuthorHouse, 2006, $20.49, paperback, 512 pages. The product of 60 years of specialization in Arabic and the Middle East, this book is a timely and all- embracing background guide to a little-understood part of the world now domi- nating the headlines. From a historical analysis of the curse of communalism, to a review of the five types of autocracies in the region (tribal, military, partisan, ethnocracy and theocracy) and the rise of the “American-Israeli Diarchy,” the author presents the many factors that have shaped this area for cen- turies — not the least of which is its unique geogra- phy. Curtis Jones joined the Foreign Service in 1946 after service in the Army during World War II. Having studied Arabic in the military, he was one of the first participants in the Arabic program at the Foreign Service Institute, and went on to devote most of his 30-year Foreign Service career to service in the Middle East. Since retirement he has worked as a gov- ernment consultant, writer and speaker. He is a regu- lar contributor to the electronic journal American Diplomacy at www.americandiplomacy.org . César Chávez, the Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers’ Struggle for Social Justice Marco G. Prouty, University of Arizona Press, 2006, $40.00, hardcover, 185 pages. César Chávez and the farm- workers’ struggle for justice polarized the Catholic commu- nity in California’s Central Valley during the 1965-1970 Delano Grape Strike. Because most farmworkers and landowners were Roman Catholic, the American Roman Catholic Church was placed in the challenging position of choosing sides in an intrafaith conflict. Twice Chávez petitioned the Church for help. Finally, in 1969, the American Catholic hierarchy responded by creating the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Farm Labor, a committee of five bishops and two priests. Chávez later declared the committee’s intervention over the next decade on behalf of the United Farmworkers “the single most important thing that has helped us.” Former Foreign Service officer Marco Prouty has drawn on rich, untapped archival sources at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide a valuable addition to the fields of labor history, social justice, eth- nic studies and religious history. PEOPLE AND PLACES Twilight in the Kingdom: Understanding the Saudis Mark A. Caudill, Praeger Security International, 2006, $44.95, hardcover, 176 pages. Active-duty FSO Mark Caudill bases Twilight in the Kingdom: Understanding the Saudis on his own dispatches from Consulate General Jed- dah, where he served as a polit- ical officer from 1999 to 2002 — in the crucial period before and after the 9/11 attacks. “Caudill’s book is an important and unique look into Saudi Arabia that is not available in all the previously published material on the country,” says Saudi journalist Faiza Saleh Ambah of the book. A converted Muslim who could pass for Syrian, 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 65