من أمريكا مع الحب

My second Foreign Service - related read for the summer was Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work, compiled by editor Shawn Dorman. The third edition was just recently published in April and contains a compilation of stories from FSOs and their families. The book is divided into five parts and features profiles of State Department employees in a variety of FS positions and locations (everything from an ambassador in Armenia to a diplomatic courier in Thailand), insight into FS career advancement and spousal employment opportunities abroad, day in the life journals, and extraordinary stories from the field (think embassy bombings and evacuations). The final section of the book details the FS hiring process which, from my experience taking the FSOT, I found very accurate and up-to-date. I enjoyed reading about the unique insights of each of the profiled FSOs and learning about the variety of career opportunities available for U.S. diplomats. While some of the information I had already learned from reading Career Diplomacy, the personal touch of reading the stories of officers in the field was highly informative and valuable to me in helping to ascertain which cone I might want to pursue in the future.