America in the World

March 1, 2020

A Los Angeles-based author whose recent Everybody Behaves Badly was a New York Times best seller, Blume acknowledges the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing in Fallout as she chronicles the U.S. government's cover-up of the catastrophic consequences of the bombing and John Hershey's groundbreaking coverage of what really happened in The New Yorker. Following Border, a National Book Critics Circle finalist, Kassabova takes us To the Lake--that is, the southern Balkans region dominated by Lakes Ohrid and Prespa, joined by underground rivers--to explore the area's enduring cultural cross-currents and reflect on how geography and politics interact. In Six Days in August, New York Times best-selling author King investigates the six-day hostage crisis in August 1973 that inspired the term Stockholm Syndrome. In God's Shadow, Yale history chair Mikhail limns the ascendance of the Ottoman Empire through the life of Sultan Selim (1470-1520). Ricca, whose Mrs. Sherlock Holmes was an Edgar Award nominee for Best Fact Crime, portrays another intriguing woman in Olive the Lionheart: Scottish aristocrat Olive MacLeod, who bounded down to Africa in the early 1900s when her naturalist fiancé went missing, carrying secrets of her own. Finally, having served as deputy secretary, undersecretary, and counselor of the State Department and held positions from ambassador to deputy chief of staff through six presidencies, Zoellick is well positioned to write America in the World, offering a history lesson on U.S. diplomacy from the Founding Fathers to today.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2020
A history of American foreign policy from a veteran in the field of "pragmatic diplomacy." Zoellick, now a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, has vast experience in the diplomatic realm: Since the early 1990s, he has served in a wide variety of relevant roles, including deputy secretary of state, deputy chief of staff at the White House, and president of the World Bank. As such, the author has a unique perspective, and the narrative is "rich with tales of human endeavor, problem solving, and political insights." Unfortunately, women are absent, as Zoellick fails to note the stellar diplomatic contributions of Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, and others. The author delineates five diplomatic traditions that have been crucial to U.S. foreign policy: a strong sense of the geostrategic potential of North America; trade, transnationalism, and technology; the alliance system, which helps maintain international order; garnering Congressional and public support; and recognizing "America's purpose" in the world, whether that be advancement of democracy or the power of the U.S. financial system. Benjamin Franklin, America's "first diplomat," knew expertly how to play the Old World rivalries off each other, didn't mind using deceit, and "put practice before theory," as Stacy Schiff wrote in A Great Improvisation. Alexander Hamilton, writes Zoellick, "employed financial means to attain political, economic, and social ends." Woodrow Wilson underscored the ideological justification for war--"the world must be made safe for democracy"--yet ultimately lacked the diplomatic team to employ the leverage to pass his peace proposals. From John F. Kennedy, the "crisis manager," to Lyndon Johnson, a brilliant congressional operator who learned bitterly from the defeat in Vietnam, to Henry Kissinger, the master of realpolitik, to George H.W. Bush, the "alliance leader," Zoellick accessibly demonstrates how they plied their diplomatic methods. However, the failure to acknowledge women diplomats is a sizable flaw. A useful, knowledgeable history that is missing a major piece of the puzzle.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 15, 2020
Former World Bank president Zoellick, who served in the State Department during both Bush administrations, debuts with a richly detailed and centrist-minded history of American diplomacy, from Benjamin Franklin’s signing of the first two U.S. treaties in 1778 to President Trump’s trade war with China. Contending that “U.S. diplomacy has sought out what works, even if practitioners stumbled while discovering what they could accomplish,” Zoellick identifies five traditions that have guided America’s foreign policy, including a focus on exerting control over North America; a prioritization of “trade, technology, and finance” in international relations; and a belief in American exceptionalism. In the book’s strongest sections, Zoellick spotlights these traditions in more obscure episodes from U.S. diplomatic history, including Michigan senator Arthur Vandenberg’s essential role in post-WWII alliance building, and Theodore Roosevelt’s mediation of the Russo-Japanese War and a 1905 clash between France and Germany over Morocco. Readers hoping for substantial insights into more recent events will be disappointed; in a brief afterword, Zoellick sketches the foreign policies of the Clinton, (George W.) Bush, Obama, and Trump presidencies, and leaves Russia’s 2016 electoral interference unmentioned. Still, this is a cogent, fine-grained assessment of the value of pragmatism in foreign affairs. Agent: Andrew Wylie, the Wylie Agency.