The Foreign Service Journal, November 2012

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2012 47 origins of a uniquely American concept of war and its implications for the future. Eliot A. Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and founding director of the Phillip Merrill Cen- ter for Strategic Studies. A former counselor at the State Department, he served as Sec. Rice’s senior adviser on strategic issues from 2007 to 2009. He lives in Silver Spring, Md. Discover Bangkok with Kids: A Practical Guide for Exploring the City with Young Children Jacqueline Grawburg, Travel Bug Publishing, Inc., 2012, $16.99, paperback, 231 pages. Finding your way around a chaotic city like Bangkok as a free-spirited backpacker is one thing. But what if you have a child in a stroller and need to find a toilet for a diaper change? Or when your kids can’t look at another amazing bit of scenery, and start up the dreaded chorus of ‘I’m booored!’?This invaluable little guide is chock-full of the nitty-gritty detail a parent needs to keep an out- ing from derailing. Jacqueline (Jacci) Grawburg practiced law in the United States for 10 years and backpacked the world before taking a break in 2007 to start a family. In 2010, when her husband accepted a posi- tion in Bangkok, she and their two young daughters embraced the adventure (see www.grawburg.com). He r firsthand experience inspired this book. American Diplomacy Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, eds., Martinus Nijhoff, 2012, $69, paperback, 233 pages. Editors Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman have assembled thoughtful essays from American and international scholars and diplomats on the challenges facing U.S. diplomacy. Among other things, essayists note how diplomacy has been undervalued in the United States, and ask how it might be strengthened in the interests of interna- tional peace and security, whether under a second Barack Obama administration or by President Mitt Romney. Paul Sharp, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota Duluth, is co-chair of the Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association, convener of the Group on Diplomacy of the British International Studies Association and co-editor of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy . Geoffrey Wiseman, a professor of the practice of international relations at the University of Southern California, is a former Australian diplomat. Writing Out of Limbo: International Childhoods, Global Nomads and Third Culture Kids Edited by Gene H. Bell-Villada and Nina Sichel with Faith Eidse and Elaine Neil Orr, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011, $74.99, hardcover, 486 pages. This collection of essays explores the theory and reality of Third Culture Kids, Global Nomads and all those who have grown up internationally. Each essay addresses a different aspect of expatriate life for a child: international schools, interacting and identifying with different cultures and their locals, feelings of being an outsider, religious stability and many other complex life experiences. Personal and heartfelt, the pieces shed light on the bittersweetness of an international childhood. Gene H. Bell-Villada, a professor of Romance languages at Wil- liams College, was born in Haiti and raised in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Venezuela. Nina Sichel, raised among expats in Venezuela, is co-editor, with Faith Eidse, of Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2003). Elaine Neil Orr, born and raised in Nigeria, is a writer and professor of literature and creative writing at North Carolina State University. George Kennan: An American Life John Lewis Gaddis, Penguin, 2012, $22/paperback, 800 pages; $9.99/e-book; $36.46/audiobook. Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in biog- raphy, George Kennan: An American Life is the authorized, definitive biography of the career diplomat and author of the “Long Telegram” and the “Mr. X” article spell- ing out U.S. strategy for containing the Soviet Union following World War II. Using exclusive access to Kennan and his archives, the author illuminates a life that both mirrored and shaped the century it spanned. John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including The ColdWar: A NewHistory (Penguin, 2006) and The Landscape of His- tory: HowHistorians Map the Past (Oxford University Press, 2004).