The Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

OF RELATED INTEREST The Ambassadors: America’s Diplomats on the Front Lines Paul Richter, Simon & Schuster, 2019, $18/paperback, e-book available, 352 pages. In this riveting book, veteran diplo- matic correspondent Paul Richter goes behind the battles and the headlines to show what members of the U.S. Foreign Service do. The author profiles four U.S. ambassadors who took on difficult and dangerous assignments in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan: Ryan Crocker, Robert Ford, the late J. Christopher Stevens, and Anne Patterson. “I hope that everyone who is unfamiliar with the ways of Washington reads The Ambassadors , because it conveys the professional ethos of the Foreign Service: courage, honesty and patriotism,” says Ambassador (ret.) Gordon Gray in his review of the book in the March FSJ . Paul Richter has written about foreign policy and national security for three decades. He covered the State Department for The New York Times from 2001 to 2015, and before that, the Pentagon and the White House. America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy Robert B. Zoellick, Twelve, 2020, $35/hardcover, e-book available, 560 pages. Recounting the actors and events of U.S. foreign policy, Robert B. Zoellick identi- fies five traditions that have emerged from America’s encounters with the world: the importance of North America; the special roles trad- ing, transnational and technological relations play; changing attitudes toward alliances and ways of ordering connections among states; the need for public support, especially through Congress; and the belief that American policy should serve a larger purpose. These traditions frame a review of post–Cold War presidencies, which the author foresees serving as guide- posts for the future. Robert B. Zoellick has served as Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Trade Representative and president of the World Bank, among many other positions. He is now a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. A Kennan for Our Times: Revisiting America’s Greatest 20th Century Diplomat in the 21st Century Michael Kimmage and Matthew Rojansky, eds., Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, 2019, free/online, 214 pages. This collection of essays by a host of for- eign policy luminaries—including Dennis Ross, Richard Haass, Anne-Marie Slaugh- ter and Jake Sullivan—originated with a February 2018 Wilson Center conference. Its purpose was to reassess George Kennan’s legacy in light of developments since his death in 2005 at the age of 101. Kennan was instrumental in shaping post–World War II U.S. policy toward Russia and established the Office of Policy Planning at the State Department. The essays, both scholarly and personal, are accompanied by interviews with four of Kennan’s successors at Policy Planning. Michael Kimmage is a professor of history and department chair at The Catholic University of America and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. From 2014 to 2017, he served on the State Policy Planning Staff, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. Matthew Rojansky is director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation Alex Dehgan, PublicAffairs, 2019, $28/ hardcover, e-book available, 288 pages. As damaged and volatile as it may be after decades of conflict, Afghanistan remains a beautiful country. To help preserve the country’s natural beauty, evolutionary biologist Alex Dehgan set out in 2006 to create the Afghanistan program of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Conservation proved to be a common bond between Dehgan’s team and the Afghan people. His team helped create THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2020 43