The Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

38 NOVEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Denyer focuses on the question of what a truly decolonized mission partnership could look like. Historical narratives, conversations about missionary work and histories of violence all play a role in deconstructing this complex relationship and discerning lessons for other missions abroad. Taylor Walters Denyer, the spouse of Foreign Service Officer Stuart R. Denyer, is a missiologist, pastor and global nomad. The president of Friendly Planet Missiology and executive assistant for strategic partnership and engagement in the office of Bishop Mande Muyombo (of the United Methodist Church’s North Katanga Episcopal Area), she is currently on loan to the Church of England, shepherding its congregation in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where her husband is posted. Cultural Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution Helena Finn, Columbia University, 2019, free/online, no cover image available, 124 pages. “As we see the deterioration of the institutions created and fostered after the Second World War to create a climate in which peace and prosperity could flourish in Europe and beyond,” Helena Finn writes at the beginning of her memoir, Cultural Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution , “it is important to under- stand the role played by diplomacy in securing the stability and strengthening the shared values of freedom and democracy that have marked this era for the nations of the world.” This book is both memoir and policy think piece. Throughout it, the author shows how public and cultural diplomacy can be used to reduce tensions between opposing parties in the pursuit of universal human rights. Each chapter, covering a distinct period of her Foreign Service career in public diplomacy, includes a section on lessons learned. Helena Finn, a retired FSO, has three decades of cultural diplomacy experience in hot spots around the world. She began her diplomatic career in 1981 in Turkey. Along the way, she worked on conflict resolution between India and Pakistan from 1984 to 1989; on post–Cold War diplomacy in Germany from 1992 to 1995; and on public and cultural diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from 2003 to 2007. She also served as acting assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in 2001. Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging Roger Kreuz and Richard Roberts, MIT Press, 2020, $16.95/paperback, e-book available, 288 pages. In our infancy and early childhood we acquire our native language, seemingly without effort. Over the course of our life, language is our constant com- panion, even as we grow old. Com- pared with other areas of cognition, it turns out that language is relatively resilient through the process of aging. In this book, the authors examine how aging affects language, and vice versa— and the results are surprising. Roger Kreuz and Richard Roberts reveal that what appear to be changes in older peoples’ language ability are actually caused by declines in other cognitive processes, such as memory and perception. They discuss the cognitive processes that underly our language ability and explore how changes in these processes lead to changes in listening, speaking, reading and writing. While “the complete story of language change in adulthood is one of decline,” it is also one of “adaptation, resilience and even enhancement,” they write. Roger Kreuz is an associate dean and director of graduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of psychology at the University of Memphis. Richard Roberts is a Foreign Service officer currently serving as the public affairs officer at the U.S. consulate in Naha, Okinawa. The pair have co-authored two previous books: Getting Through: The Pleasures and Perils of Cross-Cultural Communication (2017) and Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language (2015). From Sadat to Saddam: The Decline of American Diplomacy in the Middle East David J. Dunford, Potomac Books, 2019, $29.95/hardcover, e-book available, 280 pages. From Sadat to Saddam offers a fresh perspective on the politicization of the U.S. diplomatic corps and the milita- rization of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It begins with the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, continues