The Foreign Service Journal - November 2017

30 NOVEMBER 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL agency’s operations in one country, but also offers important insights into overall U.S. aid policy. Lawrence C. Heilman, a Senior Foreign Service officer who retired after a 20-year career with USAID, is a research associate in the Anthropology Department at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. My Own Dear Wife: A Yankee Couple’s Civil War Allen G. Breed and Robin L. White, CreateSpace, 2016, $25/paperback, $2.99/Kindle, 732 pages. This volume is a touching tale told via the correspondence between a husband and wife who sought each other’s comfort in the midst of the American Civil War. Dr. Bowman Breed, who served as a physician in the Union Army, marched off with the 8th Mas- sachusetts Volunteer Militia four days after Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter, leaving his wife, Hannah, with their 4-month-old son, Isaiah. The couple vowed to write each other every day, even if “just a line.” Bowman served throughout the war, moving from the hospitals of Washington, D.C., to North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and Tennessee. Hannah, who joined her husband in the field for long stretches of the war, adds the perspective of a frontline correspondent to that of a worried wife at home. This collection of more than 1,000 letters is a fascinating and unusual primary source for the Civil War. Among the highlights are a missive in which Bowman describes a visit with the presi- dent at the White House in April 1862 and one in which Hannah vividly describes the reaction to Lincoln’s assassination. Robin L. White and her cousin, Allen G. Breed, transcribed and edited their great-grandparents’ Civil War correspon- dence. A retired Foreign Service officer, Robin White served in Morocco, Canada and Japan. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Nathaniel P. Breed Jr., great-grandson of Dr. Bowman and Hannah Breed. Allen Breed is an Associated Press national writer. POLICYAND ISSUES Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the U.S. Foreign Service Harry W. Kopp and John K. Naland, Georgetown University Press, 2017, $29.95/paperback, $16.17/Kindle, 296 pages. Drawing on their own experience and inter- views with more than 100 current and former members of the Foreign Service, Harry Kopp and John Naland provide a candid account of the life and work of U.S. diplomats. They explore all the career tracks and lay out what to expect in a Foreign Service career, from the entrance exam through midca- reer and into the Senior Foreign Service. This new edition includes a discussion of the relationship of the Department of State to other agencies and to the combatant commands; an analysis of hiring procedures; commentary on challenging management issues in the department, including the proliferation of political appointments in high-level positions and the difficulties of running an agency with employees in two personnel systems (Civil Service and Foreign Service); and an examination of changing demographics in the Foreign Service. Harry Kopp joined the Foreign Service in 1967. He served as deputy assistant secretary of State for international trade policy in the Carter and Reagan administrations. His overseas posts included Warsaw and Brasília. He is the author of Commercial Diplomacy and the National Interest (American Academy of Diplomacy, 2004) and The Voice of the Foreign Service: A History of the American For- eign Service Association (Foreign Service Books, 2015). John Naland joined the Foreign Service in 1986 and served overseas in Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Iraq. A previ- ous two-term president of the American Foreign Service Asso- ciation, he is currently serving as Retiree VP. China’s Great Migration: How the Poor Built a Prosperous Nation Bradley M. Gardner, Independent Institute, 2017, $27.95/hardcover; $16.99/Kindle, 232 pages. China’s dramatic rise has lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty and reshaped the global economy. Despite flouting fiscal and finan- cial orthodoxy, China’s economy continued to chalk up a growth