Books offers critique and commentary of recently published books in the field of international affairs. Contributions to Books provide context, arguments, and critical thought that help clarify recent scholarly work. While publications on any aspect of global affairs can be reviewed in the Journal, books examined in this section frequently address challenges in politics, diplomacy, or contemporary societal issues.

American Public Diplomacy in the Cold War

Review by John H. Brown

Public diplomacy—the art of engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences—is back on Washington’s radar screen. Gone is public diplomacy’s post-Cold War obscurity, when many considered it irrelevant after the dissolution of the USSR. Today, with a so-called war on terror, government officials, media pundits, and commentators from both left and right have revived public diplomacy as a tool to win the U.S. gov ernment’s battle for the “hearts and minds” of the Muslim world. There are calls, in Congress and elsewhere, for increased funding for public diplomacy programs, as well as numerous proposals to make it a more effective tool of U.S. foreign policy in the post-9/11 world.

The two books under review shed light on the role of U.S. public diplomacy during the Cold War, a global conflict during which military strength was only one of many ways to overcome forces hostile to the United States. These works do not pretend to be the definitive studies on the topic, but they are nonetheless timely and significant contributions to an understanding of the past and the lessons it can give for the future. Wilson Dizard’s Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the U.S. Information Agency and Yale Richmond’s Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain are must-reads for policymakers, scholars, and general readers concerned with the United States’s international role today. more...