The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

2008 and 2009. The roundup was assembled with the help of editorial interns Elizabeth Swift, Mark Hay and Amanda Anderson. This year’s selection contains a number of high-qual- ity histories, a very strong policy and issues section, a va- riety of engaging and important memoirs, nine works of fiction and two striking and unusual coffee-table books. As in the past few years, a significant portion of our 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 selec- tion of books “of related interest” that were not written by FS authors (see pp. 36-40). While many of the titles are available from bookstores and other sources, we encourage you to use the AFSA Web site’s Marketplace Bookstore to place your orders. The AFSA Bookstore listings are linked to Amazon and, at no extra cost to you, each book sold there brings a small bonus to AFSA. For the few books that cannot be ordered through Amazon, we have provided alternative links or, when the book is not available online, the nec- essary contact information. But enough crass commercialism. On to the books! — Susan Maitra, Senior Editor HISTORY Incidental Architect: William Thornton and the Cultural Life of Early Washington, D.C., 1794-1828 Gordon S. Brown, Ohio University Press, 2009, $49.95, hardcover, 192 pages. Gordon Brown’s newest offering fills a vacuum in scholarship on the early history of Washington, D.C. In exploring the life of William Thornton, a leader and ar- chetype of the early days on the Potomac, Brown fo- cuses less on the emerging politics and architecture of the nascent capital, and more on the intellectual and so- cial developments so integral to its character. Although Thornton famously designed the iconic Capitol Building at the heart of Washington, Brown brings to light his greater, but more subtle, impact on the capital. A student at Edinburgh, Thornton brought the values of the Scottish Enlightenment to the swampy backwater outpost that would become his home. During his life on the Potomac, Thornton served as city commissioner and director of the patent office. He and his wife were also central to the bourgeoning social scene of the age, helping to create the networks and re- sources that served as the foundation for Washington’s first cultural and intellectual centers. Brown’s account of the life of this extraordinary figure offers rich insights into the early vibrancy and evolution of the culture now taken for granted as a fundamental part of Washington, D.C. Gordon S. Brown is a retired FSO and former am- bassador. He served as General H. Norman Schwarz- kopf’s political adviser during the Persian Gulf War and is the author of two previous books, Toussaint’s Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution (Uni- versity Press of Mississippi, 2005) and The Norman Con- quest of Southern Italy and Sicily (McFarland, 2003). Lewis Coolidge and the Voyage of the Amethyst, 1806-1811 Evabeth Miller Kienast and John Phillip Felt, editors, The University of South Carolina Press, 2009, $29.95, hardcover, 125 pages. Lewis Coolidge, whose diaries form the basis for this account of a 19th-century sailing expedition, was the nephew of Billy Dawes, the man who accompanied Paul Revere on his historic midnight ride. Evabeth Kienast and John Felt have edited Coolidge’s diaries of the five-year voyage aboard the Amethyst , a ship with a mission to catch fur seals in exchange for delicacies such as tea, porcelain and silk. For Coolidge, a highly literate Bostonian and the great-great grandfather of John Felt, the trip was the adventure of a lifetime. His diaries give a first-person perspective on the sealing trade and also provide thoughtful commentary on U.S. maritime culture. The text is supplemented by 18 illustrations and a survey by Felt on the “Old China trade” enterprise, as well as his account of Coolidge’s life following the voy- age. WilliamN. Peterson, the Carl C. Cutler Curator at Mystic Seaport, calls it a “worthy companion to classic sea narratives” that “sheds new light on the early Amer- ican maritime trade to the Far East.” A native of central Illinois, Evabeth Miller Kienast (1912-2007) was a reporter and arts columnist from 1934 to 1959 for the Peoria Star , where she worked with 18 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 9