‘The Art of Diplomacy’ by Stuart E. Eizenstat
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‘The Art of Diplomacy’ by Stuart E. Eizenstat

Eizenstat also leads an annual lecture series at Ahavath Achim Synagogue.

“The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World,” by Stuart Eizenstat
“The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World,” by Stuart Eizenstat

“The Art of Diplomacy,” subtitled, “How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World,” is both a memoir and the considered observation of Stuart Eizenstat. The Atlanta-born lawyer who has endowed the popular annual lecture series at Ahavath Achim Synagogue, has produced a history of how American diplomats reshaped the world over the past 50 years.

The book announces itself with eight pages of praise from a virtual who’s who of American and foreign diplomacy. Everyone from Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, and Bill and Hillary Clinton to Yossi Beilan of Israel to John Bolton, President Trump’s National Security adviser. That’s followed by a brief forward by Henry Kissinger, his last public writing before his death last year, and James Baker, the former Secretary of State. All of it seems a testament to the breadth and depth of Eizenstat’s long service as a longtime diplomat, himself — most notably as an ambassador to the European Union and as a negotiator of important agreements to compensate Holocaust victims of Nazi Germany.

In four heavily foot-noted and closely-spaced pages, he recounts such diplomatic successes as the Camp David accords of his close friend, President Jimmy Carter, and the Abrahamic Accords of President Donald Trump. There’s much to write about and to praise that has made the world a more stable place over the years.

But there’s also much concern as war rages between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Iran and its proxies on Israel’s borders, among many other places that seem on the verge of catastrophe. In recent years, the world has suffered as much from the impotence of diplomacy as it has gained from its robust use. For all of his strenuous efforts, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has largely come up empty handed in the Middle East and failed states, with little or no organized governments abound in the region. Whom do you talk to when you land at the airport in Yemen, Libya, or Somalia or the Southern Sudan, among other places? Maybe we need a book about the artlessness of diplomacy and the dangers that are posed by failed states today.

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