40 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL OF RELATED INTEREST Revolutionary Diplomacy: Spanish Connections and the Birth of the United States Thomas E. Chávez, University of Virginia Press, 2025, $29.50/ paperback, e-book available, 186 pages. Historian Thomas Chávez spent nine years overseeing the collection, transcription, translation, and publication of all documents pertinent to Benjamin Franklin in Spain’s archives. From these he’s written four books; Revolutionary Diplomacy is his latest. Chavez told the University of Virginia’s Author’s Corner that while many Americans know about France’s contributions to our fight for independence, fewer are aware that Spanish men, matériel, and “diplomatic muscle” also played a critical role. Chávez outlines the successes and failures of the American partnership with Spain during the Revolutionary War. He also introduces readers to Franklin’s fellow envoys Silas Deane, Arthur Lee, John Jay, and Robert Morris, recounting their negotiations with Spain, which helped to expand a mere colonial rebellion into a full-fledged war. Thomas Chávez has a PhD in history from the University of New Mexico. Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins Barbara Demick, Random House, 2025, $32.00/hardcover, e-book available, 352 pages. Already a mother of two, Yuan Zanhua knew her pregnancy was forbidden by China’s one-child policy. So when her twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were born in 2000, she and her husband left baby Fangfang in the care of relatives, hoping to evade punishment. But when Fangfang was nearly 2, she was violently taken from the family, who had no idea how or where to search for her. Barbara Demick was the Beijing bureau chief for The Los Angeles Times when she began exploring the origins, cruelty, and long-term effects of China’s one-child policy, and the religious movement behind many international adoptions. Demick tracked down Fangfang—now living in the United States and renamed Esther by an adoptive family that had no idea of her traumatic past. The well-researched story hinges on whether the twins will meet again and what might happen if they do. China experts and consular officials focused on adoptions will find the story particularly compelling. Barbara Demick is a former foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times who served as bureau chief in Beijing and in Seoul. Decoding Iran’s Foreign Policy: Strategic Interests, Power and Influence Ross Harrison, I.B. Tauris, 2025, $26.95/paperback, e-book available, 288 pages. In Decoding Iran’s Foreign Policy, author Ross Harrison attempts to bypass the typically polarizing debates about Iran by using a “strategic lens” to offer an objective explanation of Iran’s foreign policy goals. Harrison explains how the challenges posed by regional and global actors, as well as Iran’s own long history, affect Iranian foreign policy today. He argues that it is necessary to understand the different strains in Iran’s foreign policy—both ideological and practical—in order to predict its future behavior. Ross Harrison is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., and an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh. For more than 15 years, Harrison taught at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. His work has appeared in publications including The National Interest, Al-Monitor, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and Parameters (U.S. Army War College). Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future Dan Wang, W. W. Norton, 2025, $31.99/hardcover, e-book available, 288 pages. Author Dan Wang spent a decade living in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, investigating and reporting on China’s astonishing technological progress during that period. He watched as bridges, railways, and buildings went
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