The Foreign Service Journal, November 2010

gripping journey through both his own life and the history of the 20th century. Born in 1951 to FSO Eugene Bird and his wife, Jerri, the author grew up in the Middle East, returning to the United States intermittently for home leave and, ultimately, for college. The memoir covers events with which most readers will already be familiar from history books or nightly news broadcasts. But Bird adds a new dimension by skillfully blending biography and history. From Saudi Arabian King Faisal’s ascendency to Bird’s experience racing horses at the Aramco camp, from the siege of Mecca to his family’s acquaintance with Saudi busi- nessman Salem bin Laden — cousin of the infamous terrorist and patriarch of the elite bin Laden family for 20 years until his death in 1988— the author weaves to- gether the objective and subjective. Bird is uniquely qualified to offer insight into the progression of the entrenched problems of the Middle East. The book ends on a cautiously optimistic note, as Bird observes that, though the Mandelbaum Gate he once crossed is no longer there physically, its presence remains. He speculates that perhaps it serves as “a sym- bol of hope, a place of reunion — and a reminder that these divisions cannot last forever.” Kai Bird is the author of American Prometheus (Knopf, 2005), the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. A prolific journalist, he often writes for the Washington Post and The Nation , and is a member of the Society of American Historians. He lives in Kathmandu with his wife and son. Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador’s Journey through the Middle East Edward P. Djerejian, Threshold Editions, 2009, $16, paperback, 301 pages. Veteran diplomat Edward Djerejian presents not only a chronicle of his diplomatic experi- ence in the Middle East, but also dispenses savvy polit- ical advice in Danger and Opportunity . A former ambassador to Syria and Israel, Djerejian attempts to answer a complicated question: What went wrong with America’s foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim world? He then asks an even more pointed follow-up question: How can we fix it? Interspersed with practical examples from his ac- tion-packed career are insightful suggestions about the future of U.S.-Middle Eastern relations. Echoing his 1992 speech at the Meridian House in Washington, Djerejian asserts that the U.S. must accept that many Middle Eastern countries will never have completely secularized governments and that encouragement of the moderate Muslim majority is the best prospect for stability and peace. From his experiences in Beirut, Syria, Israel and Iraq, Djerejian provides a firsthand perspective on U.S. interaction with the Middle East and argues that the U.S. “can help marginalize radicals and champion a democratic way of life in conformity with the region’s own mainstream values and ideals.” A graduate of Georgetown University, Edward P. Djerejian served in the Foreign Service for more than 30 years. He is the founding director of Rice Univer- sity’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Encounters: A Lifetime Spent Crossing Cultural Frontiers Nancy Keeney Forster, Wind Shadow Press, 2009, $15.95, paperback, 380 pages. This unique and engaging memoir — drawn from a combi- nation of the author’s own experi- ences and those of her late husband, FSO Clifton Forster — has received critical acclaim and was the winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for excellence in independent publishing. In Encoun- ters , Nancy Keeney Forster presents the intertwined narrative of two fascinating people who shared a life- time of diplomatic adventures. (See David Hitchcock’s review in the July-August FSJ .) Several years after her husband’s unexpected death in 2006, Nancy Forster delved into the chests of papers and manuscripts he had left behind. In addition to drafts of several books, she found written reminis- cences, and it is with these that Encounters opens. The son of American expatriates, Cliff had spent the first 18 years of his life in Japan, initially as a carefree child and, ultimately, in an internment camp. Forster chronicles his journey from prisoner to diplomat. Their marriage occurs about halfway through the memoir and, from there, Forster recounts their shared adventures, from Japan to Israel to Washington. Part biography and part memoir, Encounters portrays the 22 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 1 0