The Last Embassy

From the acclaimed author of The Gunpowder Age, a book that casts new light on the history of China and the West at the turn of the nineteenth century George Macartney's disastrous 1793 mission to China plays a central role in the prevailing narrative of modern Sino-European relations. Summarily dismissed by the Qing court, Macartney failed in nearly all of his objectives, perhaps setting the stage for the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century and the mistrust that still marks the relationship today. But not all European encounters with China were disastrous. The Last Embassy tells the story of the Dutch mission of 1795, bringing to light a dramatic but little-known episode that transforms our understanding of the history of China and the West. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, Tonio Andrade paints a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of an age marked by intrigues and war. China was on the brink of rebellion. In Europe, French armies were invading Holland. Enduring a harrowing voyage, the Dutch mission was to be the last European diplomatic delegation ever received in the traditional Chinese court. Andrade shows how, in contrast to the British emissaries, the Dutch were men with deep knowledge of Asia who respected regional diplomatic norms and were committed to understanding China on its own terms. Beautifully illustrated with sketches and paintings by Chinese and European artists, The Last Embassy suggests that the Qing court, often mischaracterized as arrogant and narrow-minded, was in fact open, flexible, curious, and cosmopolitan.

"In the typical narrative of modern Sino-European relations, George Macartney's disastrous 1793 mission to China plays a central role. His failure to open China to trade and diplomatic relations with Britain sets the stage for a long and bitter clash of cultures that led to the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century and perhaps even to the mistrust that still pervades relations today. In this book, Tonio Andrade draws on a wealth of neglected archival material to tell a very different story: that of the last European delegation that was ever received in the traditional Chinese court, the Dutch mission of 1794-95"--

Jake is in a race against time to foil a demon-riddled plot to destroy earth—what a way to start his new job at the Embassy of the Dead! The second book of this spookily funny trilogy. In return for helping Stiffkey the ghost pass into the Afterworld, Jake Green has been awarded an official position at the Embassy of the Dead, a job he didn’t ask for and, to be honest, doesn’t necessarily want. But saying no to the Embassy isn’t really an option, so now Jake must journey even deeper into the mysterious world of ghosts. What should be a routine Undoing takes a turn when Jake overhears a plot to destroy the very fabric between the worlds of the living and the dead. Can he do the impossible and stop the terror that creeps in the Eternal Void? With the help of his ghostly gang—hockey stick–wielding Cora and Zorro the fox—he’s going to try. Hijinks from beyond the grave will tingle readers’ spines and tickle their funny bones as the Embassy of the Dead trilogy continues.

A fictional account of American Ambassador Hadden Walker's final days in South Viet Nam before Saigon's fall to the North Vietnamese.

Arman Lance was supposed to travel the galaxy with his father, not watch him die. He was supposed to experience the adventures from his father's stories, not isolate himself from the world. He was supposed to join the Embassy Program, fly across the galaxy, and find Ladia Purnell, the girl he fell in love with years before. Clinging to his fading hopes and dreams, Arman joins the Embassy to fulfill that last promise. He knows if he finds Ladia again, he'll be happy. But on this journey, he'll discover there is more to life than chasing a desperate obsession. There are opportunities to be taken, choices to be made, and a story to be told.

"Last Men Out" tells the riveting story of the last 11 United States soldiers to escape South Vietnam on April, 30, 1975, the day America ended its combat presence.

A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa’s greatest houses—and the lives of its occupants When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. From that discovery unspooled the twisting, captivating tale of four of the remarkable people who had called this palace home. Their story is Europe’s, and The Last Palace chronicles the upheavals that transformed the continent over the past century. There was the optimistic Jewish financial baron, Otto Petschek, who built the palace after World War I as a statement of his faith in democracy, only to have that faith shattered; Rudolf Toussaint, the cultured, compromised German general who occupied the palace during World War II, ultimately putting his life at risk to save the house and Prague itself from destruction; Laurence Steinhardt, the first postwar US ambassador whose quixotic struggle to keep the palace out of Communist hands was paired with his pitched efforts to rescue the country from Soviet domination; and Shirley Temple Black, an eyewitness to the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring by Soviet tanks, who determined to return to Prague and help end totalitarianism—and did just that as US ambassador in 1989. Weaving in the life of Eisen’s own mother to demonstrate how those without power and privilege moved through history, The Last Palace tells the dramatic and surprisingly cyclical tale of the triumph of liberal democracy.

Ever wonder exactly what the Foreign Service is and what goes on inside a U.S. Embassy? A U.S. embassy is home to a dynamic team of professionals committed to public service and the value of diplomacy. Inside a U.S. Embassy gives an up-close and person look into the lives of the diplomats and specialists who make up the U.S. Foreign Service. Gain a sense of the key role played by each member of an embassy team from Paris to Kabul, from Bogota to Beijing, and places in between. Travel into the rainforests of Thailand with an environmental affairs officer, face rampaging militias with a political officer in East Timor, and join an ambassador on a midnight trip into a Macedonian refugee camp to quell a riot. A Foreign Service career offers the experience of living in diverse cultures and the challenge of making a difference in the world. Come along inside a U.S. embassy and learn how the Foreign Service works for America.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak. Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language. When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties: to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak—but which speaks through her, whether she likes it or not. Praise for Embassytown “A breakneck tale of suspense . . . disturbing and beautiful by turns. I cannot emphasize enough how terrific this novel is. It's definitely one of the best books I've read in the past year, perfectly balanced between escapism and otherworldly philosophizing.”—io9 “Embassytown is a fully achieved work of art. . . . Works on every level, providing compulsive narrative, splendid intellectual rigour and risk, moral sophistication, fine verbal fireworks and sideshows, and even the old-fashioned satisfaction of watching a protagonist become more of a person than she gave promise of being.”—Ursula K Le Guin “The Kafkaesque writer journeys to the distant edges of the universe in his latest sci-fi thriller.”—Entertainment Weekly “Utterly astonishing . . . A major intellectual achievement.”—Kirkus Reviews “Brilliant storytelling . . . The result is a world masterfully wrecked and rebuilt.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

This book tells a true detective story set mainly in Elizabethan London during the years of cold war just before the Armada of 1588. The mystery is the identity of a spy working in a foreign embassy to frustrate Catholic conspiracy and propaganda aimed at the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth and her government. The suspects in the case are the inmates of the house, an old building in the warren of streets and gardens between Fleet Street and the Thames. These include the ambassador, a civilized Frenchman, his wife, his daughter, his secretary, his clerk and his priest, the tutor, the chef, the butler, and the concierge. They also include a runaway friar, the Neapolitan philosopher, poet, and comedian Giordano Bruno, who wrote masterpieces of Italian literature, who was later burned in Rome for his anti-papal opinions, and who has been revered in Italy for his honorable and heroic resistance to papal authority. Others in the cast are Queen Elizabeth, her formidable secretary of state Sir Francis Walsingham, and King Henry III of France; poets, courtiers, and scholars; statesmen, conspirators, go-betweens, and stool-pigeons. When not in London, the action takes place in Paris and Oxford; a good deal of it happens on the river Thames. The hero or villain, who calls himself Fagot, does his work most effectively, is not found out, and disappears. In the first part of the book these events are narrated. In the second the spy is identified and his story put together. John Bossy's brilliant research, backed by his forensic and literary skills, solves a centuries-old mystery. His book makes a major contribution to the political and intellectual history of the wars of religion in Europe and to the domestic history of Elizabethan England. Not least, it is compelling reading.