How to become an ambassador

How to become an ambassador, How to survive a crisis, and How to handle politicians are all chapters in Lessons in Diplomacy – plus 13 more.

7 August 2024: holding the book for the first time

How to become an ambassador

Last week I was thrilled to receive my first hard copies of Lessons in Diplomacy. If you’ve ever had a book published, you’ll know how good that feels. I started leafing through it and came across the “Contents” page. It looks like this:

The “Contents” page of “Lessons in Diplomacy”

When you write a book you obviously get pretty close to it. Others see it with fresh eyes. Finding the contents page printed for the first time, I thought: will people find these chapter titles appealing? How to become an ambassador? How to drink wine and know things? How to fail at geopolitical change: Brexit?

Anxiously, I ran the contents page past someone else. She said ‘If I was in a bookstore, chapter headings like How to keep your feet on the ground and How to craft a career would make me want to buy this book, because it’s not only about diplomacy. But How to be interrogated and How to grapple with a legacy of colonialism are intriguing, too.’

“Lessons in Diplomacy”: Contents

In case the picture above is not easily legible, the full list of chapters in Lessons in Diplomacy reads as follows:

Prologue: diplomacy in flux

Introduction: how to become an ambassador

Chapter 1: How to survive a crisis

Chapter 2: How to stop terrorism

Chapter 3: How to fail at geopolitical change: Brexit

Chapter 4: How (not) to introduce democracy

Chapter 5: How to understand Putin’s war on Ukraine

Chapter 6: How to grapple with a legacy of colonialism

Chapter 7: How to handle politicians

Chapter 8: How to learn from diplomatic tradecraft

Chapter 9: How to drink wine and know things

Chapter 10: How to know people

Chapter 11: How to be interrogated

Chapter 12: How to keep your feet on the ground

Chapter 13: How to craft a career

Chapter 14: How to be an ambassador

Chapter 15: How to make diplomacy reflect our changing world

Epilogue: top tips for diplomats and ambassadors

What to do next

I’m hoping that even if you don’t want to know how to become an ambassador, you may still find something of interest in Lessons in Diplomacy. It’s available for pre-order from Bristol University Press, Amazon, Waterstones and other booksellers. I’ll be doing some talks and readings in September and October.

For more about Lessons in Diplomacy, see my books tab.