As secretary of state, James A. Baker III played a critical role on the world stage in the final years of the Cold War as the Soviet Union unraveled.
His political sense and the ability to test Soviet leaders, negotiate insoluble problems in the Middle East, charm friends, and achieve the placement of a unified Germany in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were unmatched.
Diana Villiers Negroponte, an author, lawyer, and professor, highlights how Baker mobilized a coalition of international military forces, including the Soviets, to repel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
Baker seduced Israeli and West Bank Palestinians to meet face to face and begin the Oslo peace process and ended two civil wars in Central America. While he was initially hesitant about the Nunn Lugar bill to safeguard Soviet nuclear weapons, he became a driving force to transport nuclear material to secure sites in Russia.
The author also highlights Baker's failures, such as the inability to hold Yugoslavia together or to provide sufficient funds to stop the collapse of the Soviet economy.
With a foreword written by former President George H.W. Bush, this book reveals Baker's skills as a statesman-and explores how he changed the world.
About the Author: Diana Villiers Negroponte grew up in London and Europe during the Cold War and observed its ending from the London School of Economics with anticipation. An American trained lawyer with a Ph.D. from Georgetown University, she is also the author of Seeking Peace in El Salvador: the Struggle to Reconstruct a National at the End of the Cold War and edited The End of Nostalgia: Mexico Confronts the Challenges of Global Competition. She has written widely on Mexico, Central America, and the last years of the Cold War for The Brookings Institution, Woodrow Wilson Center, and Reviews of American History. She appears on CSPAN, CNN, and MSNBC and lives in Washington, D.C.
