The Foreign Service Journal, November 2012

32 NOVEMBER 2012 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL vide unique insights into the broader context of counterterrorism efforts and developments since 9/11. Michael B. Kraft has more than 25 years of experience working on terrorism issues in the State Department, Congress and the private sector, 19 years of that in the State Department coun- terterrorism office, where he helped draft legislation to combat terrorist financing. A retired career Senior Foreign Service officer, Amb. Marks served in Kenya, Mexico, Angola, Zambia, Zaire and Sri Lanka, in addition to tours at the U.S. United Nations mission in New York and the State Department’s counterrorism office. He now writes, lectures and consults, and is a retiree representative on the AFSA Governing Board. Debunking Denial: Climate Change Ideology William R. McPherson, Amazon Digital Services, 2012, $5, Kindle Edition. Global warming is considered a legiti- mate threat to mankind by 97 percent of climate scientists. So why does more than half of the American population not believe that global warming has started to affect the earth? WilliamMcPherson is interested in the divide between the hard science of global warming and the lack of awareness by the general public. He covers four major topics in the book, starting with why scientists and science have been criticized for their study of the subject. Next,he describes the denial movements and the arguments used by the Tea Party, Heartland Institute and Americans for Prosperity. Then, after explaining how the denial philosophy affects politics and has altered the public debate on environmental concerns, he details how political con- flict has widened to culture conflict, making it harder to resolve. McPherson concludes by giving his own views on the denial movements. Retired FSO William R. McPherson spent 21 years as an environmental diplomat for the State Department. He served in Tokyo and Geneva, and worked with such organizations as the World Meteorological Organization and the secretariats of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Reconstruction and Peace Building in the Balkans: The Brčko Experience Robert William Farrand, Rowman & Littlefield Pubishers, 2011, $36, hardcover, 307 pages. Robert Farrand was watching a movie in Saudi Arabia when he received the offer that would change his life. The position he accepted—deputy high representative in the small and disputed city of Br˘cko in Bosnia and Herzegovina—was a difficult one, but the challenge proved to be the most rewarding, and toughest, of his Foreign Service career. Once a bustling city, Br˘cko is located on the narrow strip of land connecting the two halves of the Serbian Republic that are broken up into the Serbian North and the Bosniak/Croat South. Farrand was sent to the ravaged city in 1997 to supervise a multinational team in restoring freedom of movement across the ceasefire line. He spent the next three years helping to return thousands of families to their burnt-out homes and rebuild mul- tiethnic government bodies. Reconstruction and Peace Building in the Balkans is fascinat- ing on both a tradecraft and personal level. The author shares anecdotes reflecting the value of familiarizing oneself with a country’s people, culture and language (and the inevitable mis- haps that come with trying a foreign tongue). But it is his sophis- ticated analysis that makes this work an authoritative source on the recent history of the Balkans and a uniquely informative case study of contemporary peace operations. It is a volume in the ADST’s Diplomats and Diplomacy series. Retired Senior Foreign Service officer Robert Farrand served in Malaysia, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Papua New Guinea and Washington, D.C. Today he is a senior distinguished fellow at George Mason University’s Peace Operations Policy Program and a member of the Cornwallis Group. He lives in McLean, Va. The Last Three Feet: Case Studies in Public Diplomacy William P. Kiehl, ed., Public Diplomacy Council, 2012, $14.99, paperback, 187 pages. In homage to Edward R. Murrow’s renowned quote on the importance of face- to-face communication, William Kiehl has compiled the first of a series of case studies