Description: Many of America's most significant political, economic, territorial, and geostrategic accomplishments from 1776 to the present day came about because a U.S. diplomat disobeyed orders. The magnificent terms granted to the infant republic by Britain at the close of the American Revolution, the bloodless acquisition of France's massive Louisiana territory in 1803, the procurement of an even vaster expanse of land from Mexico forty years later, the preservation of the Anglo-American 'special relationship' during World War I--these and other milestones in the history of U.S. geopolitics derived in large part from the refusal of ambassadors, ministers, and envoys to heed the instructions given to them by their superiors back home. Historians have neglected this pattern of insubordination--until now. Rogue Diplomats makes a seminal contribution to scholarship on U.S. geopolitics and provides a provocative response to the question that has vexed so many diplomatic historians: is there a distinctively "American" foreign policy?
Brief description: Seth Jacobs is Professor of History at Boston College and the author of The Universe Unraveling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos (2012), Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950-1963 (2006), and America's Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race and U.S. Intervention in Southeast Asia, 1950-1957 (2004).
Review Quotes: 'It turns out that the practice of American diplomats disobeying orders is not new to the Trump era. In this fast paced and stylish account, Seth Jacobs helps us to see that when diplomats went rogue at key moments from the American Revolution to the wars for Vietnam, the United States often emerged more secure than if Washington had fully called the shots.' Mark Philip Bradley, University of Chicago