The Foreign Service Journal, November 2013

34 NOVEMBER 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Conflict Analysis: Understanding Causes, Unlocking Solutions Matthew Levinger, United States Institute of Peace, 2013, $24.95/ paperback; $21.34/Kindle, 280 pages. Here is a timely and practical handbook. Instead of simply theorizing about the causes and natures of conflicts, C onflict Analysis aims to provide practitioners with the knowledge needed to translate understanding into effective action and, ultimately, solutions. The book is supple- mented with useful case studies, appendices and analytical tools. The author focuses on averting future conflicts and ending cur- rent ones; he also tackles the study of conflict alongside the study of peace, and investigates what causes each scenario. He also stresses the social aspect of conflict analysis. For those working to prevent global crises or solve ongoing ones, Conflict Analysis will provide the necessary knowledge and understanding essential to successful action. Matthew Levinger is a visiting professor at The George Wash- ington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and director of the school’s National Security Studies Program. Congo: The Miserable Expeditions and Dreadful Death of Lt. Emory Taunt, USN Andrew C.A. Jampoler, Naval Institute Press, 2013, $44.95/hardcover; $26.99/Kindle, 256 pages. Andrew C.A. Jampoler, a U.S. Navy aviator for 24 years, recently retraced the 1885 solo mission of Lt. Emory Taunt, an American naval officer assigned to explore the reaches of the Congo River and investigate possible trade opportunities. Congo is the result of that experience, and also draws on a great deal of research on Lt. Taunt and his mission. Besides telling the gripping and, ultimately, tragic story of Lt. Taunt, Congo describes the U.S. involvement in late 19th-century Africa and its role in the formation of the Congo nation. Andrew Jampoler was named Author of the Year by the Naval Press Institute in 2003 and by Naval History magazine in 2006. His previous works include Adak (Naval Institute Press, 2011), Hor- rible Shipwreck (Naval Institute Press, 2010) and The Last Lincoln Conspirator (Naval Institute Press, 2009). He resides in Loudoun County, Va. American Statecraft: The Story of the U.S. Foreign Service J. Robert Moskin, Thomas Dunne Books, 2013, $40/hardcover; $19.99/Kindle, 944 pages. American Statecraft is the first comprehen- sive history of the U.S. Foreign Service, one of the oldest, but least understood, institu- tions in the United States. The product of 15 years of research by J. Robert Moskin, the award-winning historian and journalist, this weighty tome traces American diplomacy from the country’s founding. The reader not only sees the development of the Foreign Service in the context of the issues of the times, but comes to appreciate its vital role in bringing about the nation as we know it today. An editor with Look magazine for 19 years, five of them as its foreign editor, J. Robert Moskin was also an editor for Collier’s and The Saturday Review , and the editorial director of the Aspen Institute and the Commonwealth Fund. He lives in New York City and western Massachusetts. Buried in the Sands of the Ogaden: The United States, the Horn of Africa, and the Demise of Détente Louise P. Woodroofe, Kent State University Press, 2013, $49.50, hardcover, 176 pages. The 1970s détente era, marked by the Stra- tegic Arms Limitation Treaty negotiations, was strained by ongoing disagreements between the superpowers regarding conflicts occurring inThird World nations. In this work, Louise Woodroofe focuses on one of them—that between Ethiopia and Somalia—which, according to the author, may have marked the failure of détente. Woodroofe tells the history of that conflict and its impact on the détente process, also explaining how the Horn of Africa has been altered politically and socially by the Cold War. Louise P. Woodroofe is a historian with the Department of State’s Office of the Historian, focusing on U.S. foreign policy in postcolonial Africa. OF RELATED INTEREST