40 NOVEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq Steve Coll, Penguin Press, 2024, $35.00/hardcover, e-book available, 576 pages. Countless books have been published in the two decades since the United States’ ill-fated decision to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. Most of these blame President George W. Bush and his administration for organizing a campaign to sell the war to the public, even though there was no evidence Hussein possessed any weapons of mass destruction. Steve Coll’s contribution to the literature is to document the considerable role that Bush’s three predecessors played in paving the way for his colossal blunder. His title draws on Greek mythology to describe a situation in which the parties to a con ict imagine a “fatal aw in their opponent that did not actually exist.” Steve Coll is the author of nine books, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Ghost Wars. He is an editor at e Economist, was a sta writer at e New Yorker for nearly two decades, and received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1990 for his work at e Washington Post. The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements That Changed the World Stuart E. Eizenstat, Rowman & Littlefield, 2024, $35.00/hardcover, e-book available, 520 pages. e title of Stuart Eizenstat’s book implies that he is singing to the choir. After all, Foreign Service members presumably need little persuasion that diplomacy matters. So the question naturally arises: Why should we read e Art of Diplomacy? First, it is gratifying to get the perspective of a political appointee who clearly respects career diplomats and has worked closely with them for decades. Eizenstat also o ers helpful examples of the importance of preparation for negotiations. As a bonus, the foreword by Henry Kissinger and preface by James A. Baker III are both worth reading in their own right. Stuart E. Eizenstat has been the special adviser for Holocaust issues ever since the position was created in 2013. Prior to that, he served as U.S. ambassador to the European Union and deputy secretary of both State and Treasury. e author of several other books, he is an international lawyer in Washington, D.C. America’s Collection: The Art and Architecture of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State Virginia B. Hart, Rizzoli, 2023, $100.00/hardcover, print only, 352 pages. ere is no getting around the fact that $100 is a hefty price tag for a book, even one as handsome as America’s Collection: e Art and Architecture of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State. On the other hand, given ever-tighter security, a co ee-table volume is probably the only way for most Americans to see the treasures housed in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms on the building’s seventh and eighth oors. With a foreword by former Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the book o ers essays by noted experts who detail how the collection was formed and how it came to be displayed as it is, before focusing on highlights of the collection. Reviewing America’s Collection in the April 2024 FSJ, Jane Loe er writes this “well-illustrated volume would be a welcome addition to any library that features American art.” Virginia B. Hart is the director and curator of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the State Department. The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China Robert D. Kaplan, Random House, 2023, $30.00/hardcover, e-book available, 400 pages. Despite its poetic title, e Loom of Time makes the case for realism in foreign policy. Speci cally, Robert D. Kaplan casts a skeptical eye on the West’s e orts to promote democracy across the Middle East and to counter China’s spreading in uence there.
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