The Foreign Service Journal, November 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2016 29 “of related interest” to diplomats and their families that were not written by FS authors. Our primary purpose in presenting “InTheir OwnWrite” annu- ally is to celebrate the wealth of literary talent within the Foreign Service community, and to give our readers the opportunity to support colleagues by sampling their wares. Each entry contains full publication data along with a short commentary. As has been the case for nearly a decade, amajority of the titles are self-published. Once again, although many of these books are available elsewhere, we encourage you to use AFSA’s online bookstore to place your orders. The AFSA Bookstore has links to Amazon and—at no extra cost to you—each book sold there gener- ates a small royalty for AFSA. For the few books that cannot be ordered through Amazon, we have provided the necessary contact information. — Susan Brady Maitra, Managing Editor BIOGRAPHYAND HISTORY The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West Peter Cozzens, Alfred A. Knopf, 2016, $35/hardcover, 544 pages. After the Civil War, the United States turned its attention to conquering the Great Plains and the lands beyond, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In this comprehensive, well-researched and beautifully written book, Peter Cozzens weaves together the many particular histories of the Indian Wars to present a multifaceted view of the era. He introduces readers to such fascinating characters as Generals Custer, Sherman and Grant, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and Red Cloud. He also dispels some of the myths associated with the period, such as that Indian tribes acted as a unified force against the U.S. army or that the Americans bore a singular malevolence toward Native Americans. As the action ranges from the events at Wounded Knee to the Battle of Little Bighorn, covering territory from the Great Plains to the Sierra Madre, Cozzens describes such complexi- ties as the intertribal conflicts that sometimes turned extremely violent, as well as the conflicts between the War Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His sources include field research in the West, primary-source accounts of participants and detailed congressional reports on the Indian wars. A former Foreign Service officer, Peter Cozzens received AFSA’s William R. Rivkin Award for Constructive Dissent by a Mid-Level Foreign Service Officer in 2002. The author of 16 critically acclaimed books on the American Civil War and the American West, he is a member of the Advisory Council of the Lincoln Prize and the Literary Society of Washington, D.C. Coz- zens and his wife, Antonia, reside in Kensington, Maryland. FromWashington to Moscow: U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR Louis Sell, Duke University Press, 2016, $27.95/paperback, 397 pages. “The breakup of the USSR in 1991 changed the political map of the world. Misun- derstanding what happened then has exacerbated many of the problems facing the United States today. Louis Sell’s FromWashington to Moscow takes us back to those turbulent days when Russia cast off most of its empire and gives us a corrective, insider’s view of world- changing events,” says Jack Matlock, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991. “This is an important book, an exciting read that is also destined to be an important source for historians of the period,” he adds. As Louis Sell states in the book’s prologue, his aim is to answer the question, “How did the Soviet Union—seemingly so confident and powerful in 1972—disappear less than 20 years later?” To do so, he analyzes the twists and turns of U.S.-Soviet relations during the period bookended by the 1972 SALT I strategic arms accord and the 1993 START II nuclear arms reduction treaty, drawing on personal experience, archival records and firsthand accounts from key participants on both sides. Understanding how the Cold War ended and why the USSR collapsed, he argues, is critical for comprehending how Russia got where it is today. Louis Sell is a retired Foreign Service officer who specialized in Soviet and Balkan affairs during his 27-year career with the State Department. He is the author of Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (2003).