THE STORY: The place is rural New England, the time the latter part of the nineteenth century. Ned Crocker, a twelve-year-old trained from infancy as a bare-back rider, runs away from the circus and works as a stable boy for a young New England spi

THE STORY: If ants could speak, if they could love and hate and dream and philosophize like humans, how would they react to the present state of the world? Crist in the NY Herald-Tribune wrote: We come upon the ant colony at a time when wor

“The underbrush through which Mr. Paper cuts his way . . . would be challenging for any writer. But Mr. Paper, with an eye for character and an easy narrative style, manages to keep his subject interesting. . . . And even though we know how it’s all going to end, Mr. Paper manages to add a measure of suspense to his narrative — a tribute to his abilities as a writer.” —The Washington Times This is not just another book about Pearl Harbor. It is the story of Joseph Grew, America’s ambassador to Japan, and his frantic effort in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack to orchestrate an agreement between Japan and the United States to avoid the war he saw coming. It is a story filled with hope and heartache, with complex and fascinating characters, and with a drama befitting the momentous decisions at stake. And more than that, it is a story that has never been told. In those months before the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan and the United States were locked in a battle of wills. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's economic sanctions were crippling Japan. America's noose was tightening around Japan's neck — but the country's leaders refused to yield to American demands. In this cauldron of boiling tensions, Joseph Grew offered many recommendations to break the deadlock. Having resided and worked in Tokyo for almost ten years, Grew understood what Roosevelt and his administration back home did not: that the Japanese would rather face annihilation than endure the humiliation of surrendering to American pressure. The President and his administration saw little need to accept their ambassador’s recommendations. The administration’s policies, they believed, were sure to succeed. And so, with increasing urgency, Grew tried to explain to the President and his administration that Japan’s mindset could not be gauged by Western standards of logic and that the administration’s policies could lead Japan to embark on a suicidal war with the United States “with dangerous and dramatic suddenness.” Relying on Grew’s diaries, letters and memos, interviews with members of the families of Grew and his staff, and an abundance of other primary source materials, Lew Paper presents the gripping story of Grew’s effort to halt the downward spiral of Japan’s relations with the United States. Grew had to wrestle with an American government that would not listen to him – and simultaneously confront an increasingly hostile environment in Japan, where pervasive surveillance, arbitrary arrest, and even unspeakable torture by Japan's secret police were constant threats. In the Cauldron reads like a novel, but it is based on fact. And it is sure to raise questions whether the Pearl Harbor attack could have been avoided.

This study examines 324 oral history transcripts and explains the recruitment, training, and deployment of US diplomats. Amid growing feminist hostility to Foreign Service treatment of spouses, some couples resented postings to distant Australasia but most enjoyed a welcoming English-speaking environment. While New Zealand assignments involved complex negotiations with Pacific islanders, diplomats in Australia were powerless to control the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, including the fortification of Diego Garcia and peace negotiations threatening US Navy access to the port of Fremantle. When the Australian Labor Party won power in 1972 the vulnerability of vital military and intelligence facilities alarmed the US more than opposition to nuclear ship visits that removed New Zealand from the ANZUS alliance in the 1980s. Notable exceptions to a principal focus on diplomats below the highest ranks are Marshall and Lisa Green. After meeting John Stewart Service in post-1945 New Zealand they remained for years his loyal defenders against the assaults of McCarthyism. Lisa's interview implicitly but decisively refutes allegations that, as US ambassador to Australia, Marshall plotted the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975. Despite persistent rumors of a CIA coup, declassified cables reveal resident US diplomats' hostility to the governor general's unprecedented action.

THE STORY: Is outlined in the Citizen-Journal: in 1943 an American poet living in self-exile in Paris made several broadcasts to invading American forces urging them to lay down their arms and stop the bloodshed. This absorbing and disturbing play