This is the first book to frame US public diplomacy in the broad sweep of American diplomatic practice from the early colonial period to the present. It tells the story of how change agents in practitioner communities foreign service officers, cultural diplomats, broadcasters, citizens, soldiers, covert operatives, democratizers, and presidential aides revolutionized traditional government-to-government diplomacy and moved diplomacy with publics into the mainstream. This deeply researched study bridges practice and multi-disciplinary scholarship. It challenges the common narrative that US public diplomacy is a Cold War creation that was folded into the State Department in 1999 and briefly found new life after 9/11. It documents historical turning points, analyzes evolving patterns of practice, and examines societal drivers of an American way of diplomacy: a preference for hard power over soft power, episodic commitment to public diplomacy correlated with war and ambition, an information dominant communication style, and American exceptionalism. It is an account of American diplomacys public dimension, the people who shaped it, and the socialization and digitalization that today extends diplomacy well beyond the confines of embassies and foreign ministries.
Recenzijos
This book makes multiple contributions, and while in no way exhaustive, I want to recognize three of them. This is an ambitious book. Those who study and/or practice diplomacy (and public diplomacy) will likely extract the most value from this book. It is an advanced analysis, and while it is well-written, the content is intensely packed together. The book also serves as a springboard for further research and ideas for honing the practice. (Katherine A. Brown, Journal of Public Diplomacy, Vol. 4 (1), 2024)
The book takes readers from the foundational experiences of the colonial American frontier, through the maturing of the Republic to the multiple global outreach campaigns waged during the twentieth century, into our own era of digitally powered diplomacy. This is a book for the ages which belongs at the right hand of every scholar and practitioner with an interest in diplomacys public dimension. (Nicholas J Cull, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Vol. 20 (4), December, 2024)
Introduction.- Part I Precursors and Concepts.
Chapter 1. Colonial Era
Foundations.
Chapter 2. Turning Points in a New Nation.- Chapter
3. Framing
Practitioner Communities.- Part II, 20th Century Practitioners.- Chapter
4.
Borrowing from Civil Society, 1917-1947.- Chapter
5. Foreign Service
Building a Foundation, 1948-1970.- Chapter
6. Foreign Service Transforming
Diplomacy, 1970-1990.- Chapter
7. Cultural Diplomats.
Chapter 8.
International Broadcasters.- Chapter
9. Soldiers.- Chapter
10. Covert
Operatives and Front Groups.- Chapter
11. Democracy Builders.- Chapter
12.
Presidential Aides.- Part III 21st Century US Diplomacy.
Chapter 13.
Reinvention and Fragmentation.- Chapter
14. A Failure to
Communicate?.- Chapter
15. Drivers of Change.
Chapter 16. What Happens
Now?.- Acronyms.- Selected Bibliography.- Acknowledgments.- Index.
Bruce Gregory taught graduate and undergraduate courses on public diplomacy at Georgetown University and George Washington University for nearly seventeen years. Prior to that, his 33-year government career included positions at the Department of State, U.S. Information Agency, 13 years as executive director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, and three years on the faculty of the National War College. Publications include peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, public policy reports, and a bimonthly literature review.
