"A very good attempt to give a coherent and consistent account of the China-U.S. contacts during the Cold War.... [R]eaders will certainly gain a better understanding of this interesting and intricate history." -- Zhou Wenzhong, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Few relationships during the Cold War were as dramatic as that between the United States and China. During World War II, China was America's ally against Japan. By 1949, the two countries viewed each other as adversaries and soon faced off in Korea. For the next two decades, Beijing and Washington were bitter enemies. Negotiating with the Enemy is a gripping account of that period. On several occasions -- Taiwan in 1954 and 1958, and Vietnam in 1965 -- the nations were again on the verge of direct military confrontation. However, even as relations seemed at their worst, the process leading to a rapprochement had begun. Dramatic episodes such as the Ping-Pong diplomacy of spring 1971 and Henry Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing in July 1971 paved the way for Nixon's historic 1972 meeting with Mao.

The art of negotiation—from one of the country’s most eminent practitioners and the Chair of the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. One of the country’s most eminent practitioners of the art and science of negotiation offers practical advice for the most challenging conflicts—when you are facing an adversary you don’t trust, who may harm you, or who you may even feel is evil. This lively, informative, emotionally compelling book identifies the tools one needs to make wise decisions about life’s most challenging conflicts.

Describes a method of negotiation that isolates problems, focuses on interests, creates new options, and uses objective criteria to help two parties reach an agreement.

Provides the reader with an in-depth sociocultural understanding of Chinese negotiating behaviours and tactics in Sino-Western business negotiation context. It presents fresh approaches, coherent frameworks, and 40 reader-friendly cases.

After a war breaks out, what factors influence the warring parties' decisions about whether to talk to their enemy, and when may their position on wartime diplomacy change? How do we get from only fighting to also talking? In The Costs of Conversation, Oriana Skylar Mastro argues that states are primarily concerned with the strategic costs of conversation, and these costs need to be low before combatants are willing to engage in direct talks with their enemy. Specifically, Mastro writes, leaders look to two factors when determining the probable strategic costs of demonstrating a willingness to talk: the likelihood the enemy will interpret openness to diplomacy as a sign of weakness, and how the enemy may change its strategy in response to such an interpretation. Only if a state thinks it has demonstrated adequate strength and resiliency to avoid the inference of weakness, and believes that its enemy has limited capacity to escalate or intensify the war, will it be open to talking with the enemy. Through four primary case studies—North Vietnamese diplomatic decisions during the Vietnam War, those of China in the Korean War and Sino-Indian War, and Indian diplomatic decision making in the latter conflict—The Costs of Conversation demonstrates that the costly conversations thesis best explains the timing and nature of countries' approach to wartime talks, and therefore when peace talks begin. As a result, Mastro's findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for war duration and termination, as well as for military strategy, diplomacy, and mediation.

The definitive book on Obama's historic nuclear deal with Iran from the author of the Foreign Affairs Best Book on the Middle East in 2012 This timely book focuses on President Obama's deeply considered strategy toward Iran's nuclear program and reveals how the historic agreement of 2015 broke the persistent stalemate in negotiations that had blocked earlier efforts. The deal accomplished two major feats in one stroke: it averted the threat of war with Iran and prevented the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert who advised the Obama White House throughout the talks and had access to decision-makers and diplomats on the U.S. and Iranian sides alike, examines every facet of a triumph that could become as important and consequential as Nixon's rapprochement with China. Drawing from more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with key decision-makers, including Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, this is the first authoritative account of President Obama's signature foreign policy achievement.