The Foreign Service Journal, November 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2016 43 Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era Michael Mandelbaum, Oxford University Press, 2016, $29.95/hardcover, $16.49/Kindle, 504 pages. A “much-needed and well-documented attempt to review and possibly revise the history of the post-Cold War world,” is how Geneve Mantri describes Mission Failure in his review in the September FSJ . Using a wide-ranging analysis of key case studies since the fall of the Soviet Union, Michael Mandelbaum explores the reasons why the United States has been unsuccessful in its nation-building attempts and in espous- ing its ideologies abroad, and makes a case for better consider- ation of the long-term consequences of intervention and how to build nations more effectively. Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor and Director of the American Foreign Policy program at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Stud- ies. He served in the office of Under Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger at the Department of State and, later, as an adviser to President Bill Clinton. The China Reader: Rising Power Edited by David Shambaugh, Oxford University Press, 2016, $99/hardback, $39.95/paperback, 568 pages. No nation in history has risen as quickly or modernized as rapidly as has China over the past four decades. This sixth edition of The China Reader chronicles the diverse aspects of this transition since the late 1990s. Comprehensive in scope, the anthology draws upon primary Chinese sources, as well as on secondary Western analyses by the world’s leading experts on contemporary China. Perfectly suited as a textbook for students and a reference work for specialists and the public alike, the volume covers the full range of China’s internal and external developments. David Shambaugh, an internationally recognized author- ity on contemporary China, Sino-American relations and the international relations of Asia, is a professor of political science and international affairs and director of the China Policy Program at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of Interna- tional Affairs. He is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at The Brookings Institution. Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe George Friedman, Anchor Books, 2016, $28.95/hardcover, $16/paperback, $11.99/Kindle, 288 pages. With remarkable accuracy, George Fried- man has forecasted numerous trends in global politics, technology, population and culture. In Flashpoints , he focuses on Europe, the world’s cultural and power nexus for the past 500 years—until now. The European Union was crafted in large part to minimize the built-in geopolitical tensions that historically have torn it apart. But as Friedman demonstrates, that design is now failing, as seen in the struggle for Ukraine, the fragmenta- tion of Europe’s eastern frontier, hostility in Turkey and the rise of right-wing extremism throughout the continent. It is a truly timely book. George Friedman is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, which specializes in geopolitical forecasting. The author of six books, he was previously chairman of the global intelli- gence company Stratfor, which he founded in 1996. True Believer: Stalin’s Last American Spy Kati Marton, Simon & Schuster, 2016, $27/hardcover, $12.99/Kindle, 304 pages. Noel Field was a Harvard-educated, prom- ising State Department employee—until he was caught spying for the Soviet Union, betrayed his country, and was eventually arrested and tortured by the KGB. In telling his story, Kati Marton had an unlikely advantage: her parents, Hungarian journalists, uncovered Field’s arrest, and her father was kept in the same cell as Field. They later conducted the only known press interview with Field and his wife, providing Marton with invaluable insights. She draws striking parallels between the events in Field’s life and today’s young radicalized militants joining ISIS forces—a warning of the recurring themes of history. Kati Marton is an award-winning former NPR and ABC News correspondent and the author of nine books. Currently a director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, she serves on the board of directors of the International Rescue Committee, the New American Foundation and Central European University.