Books about Diplomats from Amazon.com

The second novel in W.E.B. Griffin's new bestselling series finds Presidential Agent Charley Castillo investigating the death of an American diplomat in Argentina, the kidnapping of the diplomat's wife, and a scandal tying the United Nations to Iraq..
Price: $3.35 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A master spy's memoir of playing the game in the most strategically influential country in 1960s Africa.

Larry Devlin arrived as the new chief of station for the CIA in the Congo five days after the country had declared its independence, the army had mutinied, and governmental authority had collapsed. As he crossed the Congo River in an almost empty ferry boat, all he could see were lines of people trying to travel the other way--out of the Congo. Within his first two weeks he found himself on the wrong end of a revolver as militiamen played Russian-roulette, Congo style, with him.

During his first year, the charismatic and reckless political leader, Patrice Lumumba, was murdered and Devlin was widely thought to have been entrusted with (he was) and to have carried out (he didn't) the assassination. Then he saved the life of Joseph Desire Mobutu, who carried out the military coup that presaged his own rise to political power. Devlin found himself at the heart of Africa, fighting for the future of perhaps the most strategically influential country on the continent, its borders shared with eight other nations. He met every significant political figure, from presidents to mercenaries, as he took the Cold War to one of the world's hottest zones. This is a classic political memoir from a master spy who lived in wildly dramatic times..
Price: $15.96 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the small African republic of Kinjanja, British diplomat Morgan Leafy bumbles heavily through his job. His love of women, his fondness for drink, and his loathing for the country prove formidable obstacles on his road to any kind of success. But when he becomes an operative in Operation Kingpin and is charged with monitoring the front runner in Kinjanja’s national elections, Morgan senses an opportunity to achieve real professional recognition and, more importantly, reassignment.

After he finds himself being blackmailed, diagnosed with a venereal disease, attempting bribery, and confounded with a dead body, Morgan realizes that very little is going according to plan..
Price: $9.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Translated into a dozen languages, printed in hundreds of editions, and read by millions of people, Franklin’s autobiography has had an influence perhaps unequaled by any other book by an American writer. Written ostensibly as a letter to his son William, the autobiography offers Franklin’s reflections on philosophy and religion, politics, war, education, material success, and the status of women. This edition of the autobiography, prepared by the editors of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, is drawn with scrupulous care from the original manuscript in Franklin’s handwriting now in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. The introduction by Leonard W. Labaree places the autobiography in literary and historical contexts. In a new foreword, Edmund S. Morgan writes about Franklin’s dual allegiance as an American and a subject of an English king—and his emergence as a leader of the American Revolution. This edition also includes biographical notes, a chronology of Franklin’s life, and an updated bibliography..
Price: $5.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

No other narrative from within the corridors of power has offered as frank and intimate an account of the making of the modern Chinese nation as Ji Chaozhu’s The Man on Mao’s Right. Having served Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist leadership for two decades, and having become a key figure in China’s foreign policy, Ji now provides an honest, detailed account of the personalities and events that shaped today’s People’s Republic.

The youngest son of a prosperous government official, nine-year-old Ji and his family fled Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, escaping to America. Warmly received by his new country, Ji returned its embrace as he came of age in New York’s East Village and then attended Harvard University. But in 1950, after years of enjoying a life of relative ease while his countrymen suffered through war and civil strife, Ji felt driven by patriotism to volunteer to serve China in its conflict with his adoptive country in the Korean War.

Ji’s mastery of the English language and American culture launched his improbable career, eventually winning him the role of English interpreter for China’s two top leaders: Premier Zhou Enlai and Party Chairman Mao Zedong. With a unique blend of Chinese insight and American candor, Ji paints insightful portraits of the architects of modern China: the urbane, practical, and avuncular Zhou, the conscience of the People’s Republic; and the messianic, charismatic Mao, student of China’s ancient past–his country’s stern father figure.

In Ji’s memoir, he is an eyewitness to modern Chinese history, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Nixon summit, and numerous momentous events in Tiananmen Square. As he becomes caught up in political squabbles among radical factions, Ji’s past and charges against him of “incorrect” thinking subject him to scrutiny and suspicion. He is repeatedly sent to a collective farm to be “reeducated” by the peasants.

After the Mao years, Ji moves on to hold top diplomatic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom and then serves as under secretary-general of the United Nations. Today, he says, “The Chinese know America better than the Americans know China. The risk is that we misperceive each other.” This highly accessible insider’s chronicle of a struggling people within a developing powerhouse nation is also Ji Chaozhu’s dramatic personal story, certain to fascinate and enlighten Western readers.

A riveting biography and unique historical record, The Man on Mao’s Right recounts the heartfelt struggle of a man who loved two powerful nations that were at odds with each other. Ji Chaozhu played an important role in paving the way for what is destined to be known as the Chinese Century.

Praise for The Man on Mao’s Right

"Brave, beautifully written testimony . A true "fly-on-the-wall" account of the momentous changes in Chinese society and international relations over the last century."
--Kirkus Reviews

“It is a relief to read an account by an urbane and often witty insider who neither idolizes nor demonizes China's top leaders . . . . Highly recommended." —Library Journal, starred review.
Price: $14.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Love was not a luxury Marta Nedermann could afford during the war. But with the Nazis defeated, her life takes a surprising turn when she meets Paul, a handsome American soldier. Their whirlwind romance is cut short when his troop is deployed, but promises of marriage and a rendezvous in London bolster Marta s spirits. Then, tragically, a plane crash claims Paul s life, and Marta is left alone to discover to her delight and dismay that she is pregnant.

Now, two years later, Marta has picked up the pieces and moved on. She has started over in London with her husband, a British diplomat, with whom she shares a companionable, if passionless, marriage. Simon asks her no questions, and Marta is happy to keep close her memories of Paul and let her deeds of the past remain unspoken.

But Marta s new life is anything but simple. A new war has been brought home to her doorstep: Communist loyalists have infiltrated British intelligence, and the one person who holds the key to exposing the leak is connected to Marta s past. There is a traitor amongst them who needs to prevent Marta s involvement, and no one not her former friends or current lover can be trusted.

In this dramatic follow-up to her international bestselling debut novel,
Pam Jenoff explores the sacrifices and heartbreak that come
in a time of uneasy peace and rising paranoia, when love and
desperation can make liars of us all..
Price: $4.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This "gripping" multigenerational memoir of a life spent serving America's interests across the Far East is "an adventure story worthy of John le Carre" (Wall Street Journal)

James Lilley spent his childhood in China and later served for three decades in the CIA in Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Laos, Bangkok, Cambodia, and Peking before moving to the State Department in the early 1980s to begin a distinguished diplomatic career. From covert operations during the wars in Korea and Vietnam, to participating in Richard Nixon's opening to China as the CIA's first station chief in Peking, Lilley rose up through the ranks to become the country's leading intelligence officer on China. As America's top diplomat in Taiwan and South Korea while those countries became "true" democracies in the 1980s he participated in extraordinary changes while advancing America's interests in Asia.

China Hands, written in Lilley's voice with the assistance of his son Jeffrey, recounts his adventures as well as those of three generations of his remarkable family. It is an absorbing, thrilling look at America in Asia..
Price: $5.24 [Notify me when price goes down.]