The Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2020 31 T he Foreign Service Journal is pleased to pres- ent our 19th annual Foreign Service authors roundup in plenty of time for holiday orders. Our primary purposes in compiling “In Their Own Write” for publication are to celebrate the wealth of literary talent within the Foreign Service community, and to give our readers the opportu- nity to support colleagues by sampling their wares. Each entry contains full publication details along with a short commentary. This year our annotated list of books written, edited or translated by Foreign Service personnel and their fam- ily members has almost doubled from last year—from 43 to 78—a development that may be an unintended consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns. The list of books published in 2019 and 2020 is not a comprehensive or definitive record of works by FS authors; as always, we rely on the authors themselves to bring their books to our attention. This year we’re featuring 14 works of history and biogra- phy, 11 books on policy and issues, 13 memoirs, six books for children and young adults—and no less than 29 works of fiction. (Fiction as a refuge from 2020’s stranger-than reality?) Our “potpourri” section sports five books, on the afterlife, adoption, financial independence and project management, as well as a collection of cartoons. As usual, we also include in this month’s focus a selec- tion of recent books “of related interest” to diplomats and their families that were not written by FS authors. This year’s roundup was assembled with the vital assis- tance of Publications Coordinator Dmitry Filipoff, Contrib- uting Editor Steven Alan Honley, Associate Editor Cameron Woodworth and Managing Editor Kathryn Owens. —Susan Brady Maitra, Senior Editor BIOGRAPHYAND HISTORY Of One Blood All Nations: John Bingham: Ohio Congressman’s Diplomatic Career in Meiji Japan (1873-1885) Sam Kidder, Piscataqua Press, 2020, $16.99/paperback, e-book available, 256 pages. In the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, John Bingham established himself as one of the more consequential figures shaping U.S. history. He was a primary author of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, had been an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln, was the lone civilian prosecutor on the military tribunal that tried Lincoln’s killers and delivered the closing prosecution arguments to the Senate at the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Several years after the war, President Ulysses Grant appointed Bingham minister to Japan, and he played a historic role in establishing ties between the two nations. Japan had only recently emerged from isolation after Commodore Matthew Perry had helped open the nation. The Meiji Restoration, which had ended several years earlier, helped set Japan on the path toward rapid modernization, and the nation was in the midst of a great transformation when Bingham arrived. He would become, and remains, the longest-serving American ambassador to Japan, on the job from 1873 to 1885. Sam Kidder is a retired U.S. Foreign Commercial Service officer whose overseas postings were concentrated in Japan, South Korea and India. After serving as minister counselor for commercial affairs in Tokyo from 1997 to 2001 and from 2003 to 2006, he was named executive director at the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, a position he held from 2006 to 2014. He is currently managing director at FES, Inc. (Fukuda Editorial Services). Operation Eagle Claw 1980: The Disastrous Bid to End the Iran Hostage Crisis Justin W. Williamson, Osprey Publishing, 2020, $22/paperback, e-book available, 80 pages. Iran was newly under the administra- tion of a radical revolutionary move- ment that was thoroughly hostile to the United States. As Ayatollah Khomeini delivered heated anti-American rhetoric, Iranian radicals stormed the U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage on Nov. 4, 1979. President Jimmy Carter preferred a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, but the Iranian revolutionaries were proving to be extraordinarily difficult to negotiate with. As weeks stretched into months, President Carter authorized a daring rescue operation into Iran, hoping it would not provoke open conflict. ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/MYKHAILORIDKOUS