The Foreign Service Journal, November 2015

34 NOVEMBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL ing in Europe on the Western Front, where he was stationed on Armistice Day in 1918. Robinson recorded his feelings on warfare, and described his everyday life in the trenches of France in pencil. When the war was over, he went over his writings in pen, preserving them for future generations. He also added memos, which provide context for his diary entries and elaborate on things he could not explain at the time for security reasons. The notebook traces the fascinating trajectory of Robinson Shepard’s participation in World War I, including his training at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, his voyage to Britain across the dangerous North Atlantic Ocean and a second journey from Britain to France, his final destination. He was eventually sta- tioned in the American sector of France at Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine. A career diplomat, William S. Shepard has served in consular and political officer positions in Singapore, Saigon, Budapest and Athens and also as consul general in Bordeaux. He hopes the publication of this notebook will stimulate conversations about the price of freedom, and allow families to share their own stories with one another. He is the author of several other books, including a diplomatic murder mystery series. Hizmet in Africa: The Activities and Significance of the Gülen Movement David H. Shinn, TSEHAI Publishers, 2015, $19.95/paperback, 164 pages. While much has been written about the Hizmet (Service) movement inspired by Turkish imam Fethullah Gülen inside Turkey, this book is the first that details the movement’s activity in Africa. David Shinn analyzes the services in the form of education, business training and humanitarian work provided by Hizmet in almost every African country. Shinn visited both Africa and Turkey during his research, interviewing active members of this difficult-to-define and sometimes controversial movement. He explains the holistic approach taken by the organization in finding solutions for global problems through education, inclusive and interfaith dia- logue and cultural exchange, and describes how Hizmet’s efforts are funded from within Turkey. Hizmet is one arm of the broader Gülen Movement, which Shinn describes, offering a profile of Fethullah Gülen and the movement’s banking and business practices, humanitarian activities, and media and outreach programs. He also analyzes the effect of Hizmet on Turkish-African relations. Hizmet in Africa is “an excellent example of the type of stud- ies that are needed to understand the significance of nongovern- mental organizations in the contemporary world,” says John Voll, professor emeritus of Islamic history at Georgetown University. David H. Shinn spent 37 years in the Foreign Service, deal- ing mostly with African affairs. He served in Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Cameroon and Sudan, and was ambassador to Burkina Faso from 1987 to 1990 and to Ethiopia from 1996 to 1999. He now teaches African affairs at The George Washington University. Nobility Lost: French and Canadian Martial Cultures, Indians and the End of New France Christian Ayne Crouch, Cornell University Press, 2014, $35/hardcover; $19.25/Kindle, 264 pages. Nobility Lost is a unique history of the Seven Years’ War in North America and the collision of French, Indian and Cana- dian cultures of war and diplomacy it occasioned. Professor Christian Ayne Crouch details how these cultural misunderstandings ultimately affected the course of North American colonial history and contributed to the deterioration of the French public’s satisfaction with the “old regime.” As the author explains, the French domestic army arrived late to the conflict, bringing with them ritualized performance of honor codes that clashed directly with the objectives of the French colonial forces, present from the war’s outset, who were much more concerned with maintaining colonial territory and trading links than wartime formalities. These new colonial methods presented a deep challenge, as Crouch puts it, to European martial cultures and to cultures of masculinity, race and colonialism. In the end, the Seven Years’ War transformed all of the communities involved in both North America and Europe. Conflict between metropolitan and colonial French elites meant questioning the wisdom of French imperial ambitions. Christian Ayne Crouch, the daughter of retired Senior FSO Miller Crouch, is assistant professor of historical studies at Bard College. Nobility Lost won the French Colonial History Society’s 2015 Mary Alice and Philip Boucher Book Prize, which recog- nizes exceptional books dealing with the French colonial experi- ence between 1500 and 1815.