The Foreign Service Journal, November 2009

20 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 Kalgan consulate, the establishment of informant net- works, military reports, the Yalta Conference and nego- tiations in Tokyo. It includes the roles played along the way to eventual diplomatic relations by Samuel Sokobin, Owen Lattimore, Edgar Snow and Mike Mansfield, among others. Alicia Campi, a former FSO, is president of the Mongolia Society and the U.S.-Mongolia Advisory Group, and heads the Chinggis Khan Foundation. She is on the staff of the American Foreign Service Associ- ation. A career diplomat, Ragchaa Baasan served as first secretary in the Mongolian Embassy in Washing- ton, D.C., with dual accreditation to Mexico, from 1997 to 2000. After retirement in 2001, she was a special re- searcher in the Department of Central Eurasian Stud- ies at Indiana University. She is now a freelance consultant in Ulaanbaatar. Negritude Agonistes: Assimilation Against Nationality in the French- Speaking Caribbean and Guyane Christian Filostrat, Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers, 2008, $36.00, paperback, 240 pages. This account of the conse- quences of the French coloniza- tion of the Caribbean and Guyana gives a general overview of the history and an analysis of the relation of forces and people in Haiti, Guyana, Guadeloupe and Martinique. According to Filostrat, it is an effort to come to grips with the differences between “Haitian- ism” and “Negritude” in terms of the historical, so- ciopolitical and literary roots from which both arose. While Negritude Agonistes is certainly an accessible and informative primer on French colonialism and re- actions to French policies in the West Indies from the 16th century to the 20th, the real meat of Filostrat’s work comes from his scholarship on the Negritude literary and political movement of the 1930s. In particular, the book includes excerpts from a previously missing issue of L’Etudiant Noir Journal Mensuel de l’Association des Etudiants Martiniquais en France ( The Black Student Journal ), in which Aimé Césaire first used the term Negritude. For years, scholars had doubted that the issue — Volume 1, Number 3 (May-June) — still ex- isted. Filostrat also identifies some of the overlooked or forgotten platforms of the movement in its early days, and presents previously unpublished poetry by Léon Damas and an interview with Frantz Fanon’s widow. Christian Filostrat, a retired FSO, served overseas in Senegal, Congo, Romania and Haiti. His last posting was as diplomat-in-residence at Howard University from 1999 to 2002. Currently living in Paris, where he works to support the rights of minorites around the world, Filostrat is also the author of a novel, The Beggars’ Pur- suit (see p. 32). South Carolina 1775 — A Crucible Year Edmund Alexander Bator, American History Imprints, 2009, $26.95, hardcover, 352 pages. “This is a book that every American interested in the real story of the nation’s history should read,” says historian Thomas Fleming in his foreword to South Carolina 1775 . “With careful attention to seem- ingly minor details and the role that personality and self- interest play in unfolding events, Edmund Bator has told us in this account of the first year of the American Rev- olution in South Carolina just how fragile and tentative the enterprise was, beyond the borders of New Eng- land.” Bator’s account chronicles the reaction in South Car- olina to the call of the First Continental Congress for the colonies to unite against Great Britain. “Low-coun- try” leaders tended to lean toward the rebels, while “back-country” leaders were less sure of the utility of breaking ties with the motherland. Based primarily on original sources, including letters and diaries of the in- dividuals involved, the book affords unique insights into the difficult and turbulent political process in South Car- olina as the Revolutionary War got under way. Edmund Alexander Bator is a retired FSO, whose 25-year diplomatic career took him to Finland, Italy, Yu- goslavia, Kuwait and Washington, D.C. After retiring, he became a guest lecturer on the Middle East at Oglethorpe University while continuing to pursue re- search in early American history and genealogy. Cold War Confrontations: U.S. Exhibitions and their Role in the Cultural Cold War Jack Masey and Conway Lloyd Morgan, Lars Muller Publishers, 2008, $49.95, hardcover, 424 pages. In this book, Jack Masey and Conway Lloyd Morgan demonstrate the importance of world fairs and interna- tional exhibitions to the political, cultural and commer- cial battles of the Cold War.