The Ambassadors:Thinking About Diplomacy from Machiavelli to Modern Times | American Diplomacy Est 1996

I would sum up that history in a Hegelian framework: Adenauer supplied the thesis – anchoring his country in the West; Brandt added the antithesis – stabilizing relations to the East; and Kohl achieved the synthesis – a fusion of the two Germanys in a reconciled Europe. Brandt gets Cooper’s special acclaim. Although he doesn’t mention Angela Merkel... See more

Those interested in diplomacy will read this book with pleasure and profit. And indulge its idiosyncrasies. Cooper’s analytical skill lies in reconstructing complex chains of events; his synthetic talent, in making sense of it all. The latter was pronounced in his earlier work, Breaking. Here he adds analysis. His is an intellectual apparatus opera... See more

Analysis and synthesis, Goethe liked to say, should be alternated as naturally as breathing in and breathing out. Such breathing is natural; such thinking uncommon.

Diplomacy, in Cooper’s view, is high-stakes drama. An admirer of Shakespeare, he approaches it as a playwright would. Or a screenwriter. For example, here’s how he sets the scene for Kennan’s epoch-making Long Telegram, the embryo of the U.S. policy on containment: “February, 1946. Moscow. George Kennan is sick in bed . . . His ambassador is away a... See more

“Niccolo is a good diplomat: he is interesting to talk to; he listens carefully, writes well, thinks ahead.”

  Readers crave lessons; aspiring diplomats can learn from them; old hands can quibble with them. Cooper calls them “maxims.” One is particularly powerful – and painful. It comes from Robert McNamara and his reflections on Vietnam written in 1995. It is a searing indictment as we ponder the calamity in Afghanistan. It sums up a lot of Cooper’s... See more