WELCOME

Formerly a university teacher, I am now a freelance writer specialising in the theory and practice of diplomacy from the earliest times until the present. As well as hoping to encourage the study of diplomacy, this site provides periodic updating of two of my books.


Diplomacy: Theory and Practice
Online updating3rd edn, (Palgrave-Macmillan: Basingstoke and New York, 2005)
ISBN 1-4039-9311-4 (pbk)

'Highly recommended' reading for employees of all US foreign affairs agencies

CLICK HERE FOR ONLINE UPDATING
Most recent update: 12 February 2008

A Dictionary of Diplomacy
Online updating(with Alan James), 2nd edn
(Palgrave-Macmillan: Basingstoke and New York, 2003)
ISBN 1-4039-1536-9 (pbk)

CLICK HERE FOR ONLINE UPDATING
Most recent update: 21 July 2008

To enable regular visitors to identify new material, the latest updates are entered in red.


NEWS AND VIEWS


The last valedictory despatch?

In early 2007 the unclassified parts of the farewell telegram sent to the Foreign Office in London by Sir Ivor Roberts, outgoing British Ambassador to Italy, on retiring from the diplomatic service, were leaked to the press. These contained criticisms of certain recent changes in the Foreign Office, stirred controversy and are still well worth reading. I publish them here, the first time I believe that they have appeared in full.
 
Valedictory despatches have a long and valuable history for three good reasons. First, because they are written by diplomats of great experience they are usually wise. Secondly, because they are end of term they tend to be reflective and broad in sweep. Thirdly, because their authors, with their official careers over, have little fear of retribution from their political or administrative masters, they are invariably more frank than usual. It was therefore a black moment when the Foreign Office, on the day that Sir Ivor’s telegram was sent to them, decided to ban any further valedictory despatches. Ironically enough, this merely tended to confirm the force of his argument that the Foreign Office, fallen victim like the universities and so many other of our institutions to the dead – and deadening – hand of managerialism, now attached more importance to the requirements of ‘corporate governance’ than open debate on policy. To its great credit, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has urged that this decision be reversed.
 
Sir Ivor Roberts joined the Diplomatic Service in 1968. After rising through the ranks, he was Ambassador in Belgrade and then Dublin before being appointed to Rome. He is now President of Trinity College, University of Oxford, and working on a new edition of Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice for Oxford University Press. I notice that Satow’s Guide currently contains no mention of valedictory despatches. Perhaps the new one will. This ailing institution clearly needs a shot in the arm.

Read this and worry

Simon Jenkins is Britain's sharpest and wisest political columnist. Read here his latest piece on the dangerous situation arising out of the fighting in Georgia, and worry.
See also this item.
[25 August 2008]

New book published !

My latest book, Tilkidom and the Ottoman Empire: The Letters of Gerald Fitzmaurice to George Lloyd, 1906-1915, has just been published by The Isis Press , Istanbul. Read more about this here.
[23 July 2008]

Latest book review

Cyprus: the search for a solution (2005) - David Hannay [review]
[25 September 2008]

Foreign language translations

Diplomacy: Theory and Practice [Chinese edition]My textbook, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, is available in Chinese, translated by Dr Pang Zhongying, Director of the Institute of Global Issues at Nankai University and published by Peking University Press (PUP); in Croatian, translated by Ksenija Jurišic and published in the Political Thought Series (Biblioteka Politicka Misao) of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Zagreb; and in Greek, published by Editions Tourikis. A Serbian translation, published by Filip Visnjic of Belgrade, and an Albanian one published by Dudaj, are in the pipeline.
[24 October 2008]

Diplomatic Theory from Machiavelli to Kissinger [Croation edition]The Croatian translation of Diplomatic Theory from Machiavelli to Kissinger was published in October 2005 by Biblioteka Politicka Misao; it is to be published in Chinese by PUP; and Albanian by Libraria 'Dukagjini'.

A Dictionary of Diplomacy and Diplomatic Classics are also to be published in Chinese by PUP.

Malgorzata van de Westelaken, Foreign Rights Consultant of Palgrave-Macmillan , would be pleased to hear from anyone interested in undertaking or promoting translations of these works into other languages.
[11 April 2006]

Need an MA dissertation or PhD thesis topic?

As regular visitors will know, I have a page on this site called Postgraduate research required on contemporary diplomacy. This has proved one of the most popular pages, so I have just overhauled and expanded it. However, I should add two cautions. First, the list of topics is not meant to be exhaustive: it is just a list of topics that have occurred to me as being under or poorly researched. Secondly, there is of course always room for a fresh (‘revisionist’) look at topics which may seem adequately or even ‘over researched’. After all, knowledge advances via the constant challenging of conventional wisdom, either on internal grounds or in the light of newly discovered source material – or, more usually, both.
[12 October 2007]

Writing essays

Most university departments provide advice on this subject, publishers have got into it in a big way, and there is of course ample advice elsewhere on the internet. Nevertheless, I feel moved to make a few contributions of my own on points that I have found to present particular problems to students. As a result, I have just started a new section and launch it with a short note on how to tackle comparative essay questions. I shall follow it with one on 'introductions' when I have the time.
[26 November 2007]

Open letter to broadcast journalists

Please do not ask me to feature on radio or TV programmes. It is not my sort of work and I would be forced to decline.
[27 November 2007]


Datanext Systems

 
This site was originally designed by Simon Kear