44 NOVEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL national leaders consider the role of history in the shaping of foreign policy. Born in Argentina and now a resident of Israel, Yoav J. Tenembaum is a lecturer in international relations at Tel Aviv University. His publishing credits include a poetry anthology and a children’s book, as well as numerous articles in various periodicals. Lessons in Diplomacy: Politics, Power and Parties Leigh Turner, Policy Press, 2024, $29.99/hardcover, e-book available, 256 pages. Lessons in Diplomacy lives up to the promise of its title by o ering 15 chapters, each drawing on Leigh Turner’s extensive overseas experience to explain how to do just about everything involved in a diplomatic career: “survive a crisis,” “tackle terrorism,” “handle politicians,” “learn from diplomatic tradecraft,” “drink wine and know things,” “know people,” “craft a career,” and “make diplomacy re ect our changing world,” among others. In his epilogue, “Top Tips for Diplomats and Ambassadors,” the author lays out the challenges diplomatic professionals face. He ends on an optimistic note: “ e requirement for expertise in distant places, policies and peoples will persist. … A deep understanding of people and what makes them tick will never go out of fashion.” Leigh Turner is a British writer and former diplomat. His nal diplomatic role was as the British ambassador to Austria and U.K. permanent representative to the United Nations in Vienna from 2016 to 2021. The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America Larry Tye, HarperCollins, 2024, $32.50/hardcover, e-book available, 416 pages. Larry Tye’s three-in-one biography of these great American musicians (all born within the same ve-year span at the turn of the 20th century) is full of colorful details about their lives and careers. But it is chapter 23, “Overseas Ambassadors,” that will be of special interest to Foreign Service readers. Tye notes that “each of the maestros acted as an informal ambassador in mid-century, traveling to dozens of countries from Asia to Latin America and Europe. At rst, they sought only the artistic acceptance and lucrative paydays that eluded them in America. Over time, the State Department started picking up the tabs and setting itineraries that served political, as well as musical, objectives.” is was particularly true of their trips to Africa; in 1960, for instance, the civil war in the Belgian Congo ceased entirely in honor of Satchmo’s 24-hour visit. Larry Tye is a bestselling author of eight books, including biographies of Joseph McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy. America’s Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan James Graham Wilson, Cornell University Press, 2024, $32.95/ hardcover, e-book available, 336 pages. Although he lived almost as long as George Kennan, Paul Nitze never quite achieved the fame of his coeval. But James Graham Wilson makes a compelling case in this biography that Nitze was comparably in uential in U.S. diplomacy. Perhaps best known for leading the formulation of National Security Paper 68 (“United States Objectives and Programs for National Security”) in 1950, he played a prominent role in negotiating arms control treaties with the Soviet Union some three decades later. Reviewing America’s Cold Warrior in e Wall Street Journal, Richard Aldous writes: “Mr. Wilson tells Nitze’s story with an impressive command of detail and sources, no mean feat given the span of Nitze’s career.” James Graham Wilson has been a supervisory historian at the State Department for more than 10 years, leading a team that compiles volumes for the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, the o cial record of U.S. foreign policy.
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