Books about Ambassador from Amazon.com

With no-holds-barred candor, the straight-talking former ambassador to the United Nations takes readers behind the scenes at the UN and the U.S. State Department and reveals why his efforts to defend American interests and reform the UN resulted in controversy. A veteran of three Republican administrations and a nominee for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Bolton shows how the U.S. can lead the way to a more realistic global security arrangement for the twenty-first century and identifies the next generation of threats to America.

The son of a Baltimore firefighter and the first person in his family to go to college, with scholarships to Yale University and Yale Law School, John Bolton studied with preeminent conservative thinkers Robert Bork and Ralph Winter. After law school, he experienced the "Reagan Revolution" firsthand in Edwin Meese's justice department -- where the American judiciary was fundamentally reshaped. His diplomatic skills were honed working with Secretary of State James Baker during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and serving in the administration of President George W. Bush as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.

In this revealing memoir, he candidly recounts his appointment in 2005 as Ambassador to the United Nations, his headline-making Senate confirmation battle, which resulted in his recess appointment, and his sixteen-month tenure at the United Nations. Bolton offers keen insight into such international crises as North Korea's nuclear test, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, the genocide in Darfur, the monthlong negotiation that produced the controversial end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and more. Recounting both his successes and frustrations in taking a hard line against weapons-of-mass destruction proliferators, terrorists, and rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, he also exposes the operational inadequacies that hinder the UN's effectiveness in international diplomacy and its bias against Israel and the United States. At home, he criticizes the pernicious bureaucratic inertia in the U.S. State Department that can undermine presidential policy.

A fascinating chronicle of the career of a distinguished lawyer and diplomat who has fought to preserve American sovereignty and strength at home and abroad, Surrender Is Not an Option is the candid memoir of one of America's outstanding statesmen that is sure to become required reading for everyone interested in international affairs..
Price: $11.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]

On July 6, 2003, four months after the United States invaded Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson's now historic op-ed, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," appeared in The New York Times. A week later, conservative pundit Robert Novak revealed in his newspaper column that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative. The public disclosure of that secret information spurred a federal investigation and led to the trial and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and the Wilsons' civil suit against top officials of the Bush administration. Much has been written about the "Valerie Plame" story, but Valerie herself has been silent, until now. Some of what has been reported about her has been frighteningly accurate, serving as a pungent reminder to the Wilsons that their lives are no longer private. And some has been completely false--distorted characterizations of Valerie and her husband and their shared integrity.

Valerie Wilson retired from the CIA in January 2006, and now, not only as a citizen but as a wife and mother, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and the sister of a U.S. marine, she sets the record straight, providing an extraordinary account of her training and experiences, and answers many questions that have been asked about her covert status, her responsibilities, and her life. As readers will see, the CIA still deems much of the detail of Valerie's story to be classified. As a service to readers, an afterword by national security reporter Laura Rozen provides a context for Valerie's own story.

Fair Game is the historic and unvarnished account of the personal and international consequences of speaking truth to power.

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Read the First Chapter from Fair Game

Joining the CIA
Our group of five--three men and two women--trekked through an empty tract of wooded land and swamp, known in CIA terms as the "Farm." It was 4 a.m. and we had been on the move all night. Having practiced escape and evasion from an ostensible hostile force--our instructors--we were close to meeting up with our other classmates. Together we would attack the enemy, then board a helicopter to safety. This exercise, called the final assault, was the climax of our paramilitary training. Each of us carried eighty-pound backpacks, filled with essential survival gear: tents, freeze-dried food, tablets to purify drinking water, and 5.56 mm ammunition for our M-16s. The late fall weather was bitter, and slimy water sloshed in our combat boots. A blister on my heel radiated little jabs of stinging pain. My friend Pete, a former Army officer, usually ready with a wisecrack and a smirk, hadn't spoken in hours, while John, our resident beer guzzler, carried not only his backpack but at least fifty extra pounds of body weight. His round face was covered with mud and sweat.

Read the Publisher's Note and First Chapter from Fair Game

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In this outspoken and much-praised memoir, the highest-ranking woman in American history shares her remarkable story and provides an insider's view of world affairs during a period of unprecedented turbulence. A national bestseller on its first publication in 2003, Madam Secretary combines warm humor with profound insights and personal testament with fascinating additions to the historical record..
Price: $3.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Classic literature by famous Christian authors. Each book is richly detailed in an upscale package, uniquely designed for gift-giving and for collecting a personal classic library.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs is a record of the protestant martyrs, beginning with Stephen and ending during the reign of Queen Mary. Foxe was an educated martyrologist and was, himself, on the run from persecution for a period of his life. This collection of stories is an inspirational volume of the power of faith.

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Price: $7.08 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Acknowledged by theologians as one of the great masterpieces of the Reformation, Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will was also Luther's favorite work. Luther responds to Desiderius Erasmus' Diatribe on Free Will with the bluntness, genius, sarcasm, and spirituality that were as much a part of his writing as they were of his colorful personality. Luther writes lucidly on the themes of man's inability and God's ability, man's depravity and God's sovereignty. The crucial issue for Luther concerned what ability free will has, and to what degree it is subject to God's sovereignty. Luther's doctrine of salvation pivoted on this key issue. Is man able to save himself, or is his salvation completely a work of divine grace? This work will long remain among the great theological classics of Christian history. Bondage of the Will was first published in 1525, eight years after Luther penned his Ninety-Five Theses..
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Safe School Ambassadors is an essential guide for school administrators, counselors, teachers, parents, and youth organization leaders. It challenges the current "outside-in" thinkingthat keeping schools safe is accomplished primarily by adults through heightened security and stricter policies. It makes the case for a complementary inside-out approach that taps the power of students to change the social norms of a school culture in order to stop bullying and violence..
Price: $11.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Widely known as the creator of the air-step in Lindy Hop, a choreographer and Tony award winner, Frankie Manning recalls how his first tentative steps as a teenager at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom eventually led him to a career as chief choreographer and lead dancer for Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, who appeared on Broadway stages, Hollywood films, and stages around the world. He brings the Swing Era to life with recollections of the headliners as well as the dozens of uncelebrated dancers who helped to make the Lindy an international sensation.
With collaborator, Cynthia Millman, Manning traces the evolution of swing dancing from those early days in Harlem through the post-War War II period until it was eclipsed by rock and roll, then disco. Never one to sit on the sidelines, Manning ended his 35-year hiatus from dancing during the early years of the swing revival, and he has been performing and teaching ever since. This wonderful memoir will be a revelation to the new generations of Lindy Hoppers as well as dance historians..
Price: $17.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Ambassadors, which Henry James considered his best work, is the most exquisite refinement of his favorite theme: the collision of American innocence with European experience. This time, James recounts the continental journey of Louis Lambert Strether--a fiftysomething man of the world who has been dispatched abroad by a rich widow, Mrs. Newsome. His mission: to save her son Chadwick from the clutches of a wicked (i.e., European) woman, and to convince the prodigal to return to Woollett, Massachusetts. Instead, this all-American envoy finds Europe growing on him. Strether also becomes involved in a very Jamesian "relation" with the fascinating Miss Maria Gostrey, a fellow American and informal Sacajawea to her compatriots. Clearly Paris has "improved" Chad beyond recognition, and convincing him to return to the U.S. is going to be a very, very hard sell. Suspense, of course, is hardly James's stock-in-trade. But there is no more meticulous mapper of tone and atmosphere, nuance and implication. His hyper-refined characters are at their best in dialogue, particularly when they're exchanging morsels of gossip. Astute, funny, and relentlessly intelligent, James amply fulfills his own description of the novelist as a person upon whom nothing is lost. --Rhian Ellis.
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A profound but practical approach to emotional maturity and spiritual wholeness, written by a Jeusit who devoted his life to recovery -- his own and thousands of others -- from the pit of addiction. His influence continues to touch the lives of countless people who seek happy and purposeful lives..
Price: $7.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]