32 NOVEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL (son of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), Ulysses S. Grant, and Andrew Carnegie. Each section is introduced by an established scholarly expert, with editor Samuel Kidder providing an overall introduction, timeline, and footnotes to put these accounts into their diplomatic, cultural, and historical context. e personal observations of these travelers give the reader a glimpse into the formation of American attitudes toward Japanese society and culture. Samuel Kidder joined the Foreign Commercial Service in 1983 and retired in 2006. His last position was as ministercounselor for commercial a airs in Japan—his third Japan posting. Upon retirement, he became executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, a position he held until 2014. Another retired FSO, Edwina S. Campbell, wrote the introduction to the section of the book on Ulysses S. Grant. Campbell is the author of a book on Grant’s post-presidential travel and diplomatic policy, Citizen of a Wider Commonwealth, which was featured in the November 2017 FSJ. American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission Keith E. Peterson, Armida Books, 2024, $25.00/paperback, print only, 298 pages. is is the history of the 52-year run of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission, which was for decades the largest commission in the world. e bicommunal commission bene ted both Greek and Turkish Cypriots, who worked on the commission together, even after their 1974 war. e U.S. invested more than $250 million in the commission, including millions of dollars devoted to con ict resolution work by many important American scholars. Keith Peterson retired in 2015 after 29 years as a public diplomacy o cer with USIA and the State Department. He was posted in Bangladesh, Tunis, Nicosia, Bridgetown, London, Valletta, Stockholm, and Washington, D.C. Peterson was the last chairman of the board of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission and currently splits his time between Illinois and Florida. Josh Binney: From Mack Sennett to Cab Calloway T. Dennis Reece, BearManor Media, 2024, $28.00/paperback, print only, 198 pages. is biography explores the lm and stage career of actor, director, writer, producer, and promoter Josh Binney, a pioneering artist who was called a “spiritual forefather” of director Spike Lee. e author covers Binney’s direction of all-Black lms in the 1940s as well as his troubles with the law, including time spent in Montana State Prison for investment fraud. T. Dennis Reece is a retired State Department Foreign Service o cer who served in the Soviet Union, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Cabo Verde, and Washington, D.C. A graduate of Valparaiso and Purdue Universities in Indiana, he now lives in Tampa, Florida. He is a volunteer for the GoodwillSuncoast Bookworks early literacy program and is head of the Clearwater chapter of the Sons of the Desert, a Laurel and Hardy appreciation society. My Dearest Lilla: Letters Home from Civil War General Jacob D. Cox Gene Schmiel, ed., University of Tennessee Press, 2023, $34.95/ paperback, e-book available, 296 pages. My Dearest Lilla is a collection of letters written from the battle eld by Civil War General Jacob Cox to his wife, Helen. is collection of letters, edited by retired FSO Gene Schmiel, o er lucid reports and analyses of the war as Cox makes the transition from untested soldier to respected general and statesman. As the letters also show, Cox’s commitment to the Union and the abolition of slavery motivated him to ght, but his love for his wife, and his respect for her as an intellectual equal, shine through. Gene Schmiel has written 25 books about the Civil War and regularly speaks to Civil War groups across the country. During his Foreign Service career, he served as chargé d’a aires in Reykjavík, Djibouti, and Bissau, and as consul general in Mombasa.
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