Suggested Reading
Members of the U.S. Foreign Service must be well-informed and knowledgeable across many disciplines: current world and national affairs, economics, history, public affairs, and management, among others. And, since members of the Foreign Service represent the United States to the world, they must also possess an insightful understanding of American society and culture. This breadth of knowledge is usually gathered gradually over time. The best foundation is a solid education and a personal life-habit of reading, learning, and expanding one’s understanding of the world.
Given this breadth, it is difficult to provide a definitive reading list that will prepare a person for the Foreign Service selection process, and for a Foreign Service career. Nonetheless, the reading list below illustrates the kinds of books and readings that can set you in the right direction.
Note: The inclusion or exclusion of specific materials on this list does not constitute an endorsement nor rejection by the U.S. Department of State of any particular title, author, or topic. Reading widely from a variety of viewpoints to understand arguments that support or run counter to U.S. policy or one’s own convictions helps diplomats be persuasive when encountering other perspectives.
Learn more about the U.S. Department of State’s story from our official DOS Messengers
• State.gov (policy)
• The National Museum of American Diplomacy (NMAD) The National Museum of American Diplomacy (state.gov)
• American Foreign Service Association (AFSA)American Foreign Service Association (afsa.org)
• The Foreign Service Journal (FSJ) The Foreign Service Journal – January/February 2024 | American Foreign Service Association (afsa.org)
• State Magazine Home – State Magazine
Current Affairs
• Periodicals such as The Economist, Time, The Atlantic, Forbes, The New Yorker, Fortune
• A major daily newspaper such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times
• Journals such as The Foreign Service Journal, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy
• Podcasts like The New York Times’ “The Daily,” the BBC World News, or “The General and the Ambassador” or “The American Diplomat,” “War on the Rocks,” “Lawfare Live.”
English Usage
• Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers, 17th ed., University of Chicago Press, 2017. ISBN: 978-0226287058
• Strunk, W., Jr. and White, E.B. The Elements of Style, 4th ed., Allyn & Bacon, 1999. ISBN: 020530902X
The Foreign Service and U.S. Foreign Policy
• Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training: adst.org
• U.S. Department of State “Foreign Policy Classroom,”
• Expert reports on reforming the U.S. Department of State such as “A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century” by N. Burns, M. Grossman, M. Ries, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, November 2020; “Revitalizing the State Department and American Diplomacy” by U. Zeya, J. Finer, The Council on Foreign Relations, November. 2020; National Museum of American Diplomacy programs
• Ambrose, Stephen E., and Douglas Brinkley. Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938. Penguin, 2011. ISBN: 0142004944
• Burns, William J. The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal. Random House, 2019. ISBN: 0525508864
• Dorman, Shawn. Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work, All-New Third Edition of the Essential Guide to the Foreign Service. 3rd ed., American Foreign Service Association, 2011. ISBN: 9780964948846
• Houghton, David Patrick. The Decision Point: Six Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy Decision Making. Oxford University Press. 2012. ISBN: 0199743525
• Hutchings, Robert and Suri, Jeremi, eds., Modern Diplomacy in Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. ISBN: 9783030269357
• Jentleson, Bruce W. American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century. W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. ISBN: 0393933571
• Kaufman, Joyce. A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy, 5th Edition. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021. ISBN: 1538151359
• Kopp, Harry, and John Naland. Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service. Georgetown University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9781626164697
• Krenn, Michael Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945-1969; Routledge, 1999; ISBN 9780765603814
• Paterson, Thomas G. American Foreign Relations: A History. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2009. ISBN: 0547225695
• Rosati, J. The Politics of United States Foreign Policy. 5th ed., Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2010. ISBN: 0495797241
• Zoellick, Robert. America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy. Illustrated, Twelve, 2020. ISBN: 1538761300
U.S. Government and Politics
• General primers on U.S. government structure and functions
• Burton, Orville Vernon. Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court. Belknap Press, 2021. ISBN: 0674975642
• Huntington, Samuel. American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony Belknap Press, Revised edition 1983. ISBN: 978-0674030213
• Murray, Williamson, Richard Hart. Sinnreich, and Jim Lacey. The Shaping of Grand Strategy: Policy, Diplomacy, and War. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. ISBN: 0521156335
• Rushefsky, M.E. Public Policy in the United States: At the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century, 4th ed., Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2008. ISBN: 978976561663
• Trachtman, Michael. The Supremes’ Greatest Hits, 2nd Revised & Updated Edition: The 44 Supreme Court Cases That Most Directly Affect Your Life. Sterling, 2016. ISBN: 1454920777
U.S. History, Society, Customs, and Culture
• Cantú, Francisco. The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border. Riverhead Books, 2019. ISBN: 0735217734
• Davidson, J.W., et al. Nation of Nations: A Narrative History of the American Republic, 6th ed., Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007. ISBN: 0073406848
• Feagin, J.R. and Feagin, C.B. Racial and Ethnic Relations. 9th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. ISBN: 0205024995
• Immerwahr, Daniel. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. Illustrated, Picador, 2020. ISBN: 0374172145
• Kanstroom, Dan. Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History. Harvard UP, 2010. ISBN: 0674046226
• Lepore, Jill. These Truths: A History of the United States. Illustrated, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019. ISBN: 0393357422
• Martin, David A., and Peter H. Schuck. Immigration Stories. Foundation, 2005. ISBN: 158778873X
• Shukla, Nikesh, and Suleyman, Chimene. The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America. Back Bay Books, 2020. ISBN: 0316524239
• Takaki, Ronald T. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Back Bay and Little Brown, 2008. ISBN: 0316022365
• Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns. Vintage, 2011. ISBN: 0679763880
• Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience, 5th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2011 ISBN: 0073385573
World History and Geography
• Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Business, 2012. ISBN: 0307719219
• Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood and Fire, A Concise History of Latin America, 4th Edition. New York: WW Norton & Co, 2016. ISBN: 0393283054
• Diamond, Larry Jay. The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies throughout the World. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009. ISBN: 0805089136
• Doig, Will. High Speed Empire: Chinese Expansion and the Future of Southeast Asia. New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2018. ISBN: 0997722983
• Ferguson, Niall. Civilization: The West and the Rest. New York: Penguin, 2011. ISBN: 9780143122067
• Gelvin, James L. The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. ISBN: 019989177X
• Gordon, April A., and Donald L. Gordon. Understanding Contemporary Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2013. ISBN:1588268470
• Green, Michael. More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. ISBN: 023118042X
• Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Houghton Mifflin, 1999. ISBN: 9780618001903
• Mishra, Pankaj. From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt against the West and the Remaking of Asia. London: Allen Lane, 2012. ISBN: 1250037719
• Pomfret, John. The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, America and China, 1776 to the Present. Henry Holt & Co., 2016. ISBN: 0805092501
• Stanley, Jason. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Random House, 2018. ISBN: 9780525511847
• Yergin, Daniel. The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World. Penguin, 2012. ISBN: 0143121944
• Zakaria, Fareed. The Post-American World: Release 2.0. W. W. Norton & Company, 2021. ISBN: 0393340384
Economics:
• Hall, R.E. and Papell, D.H. Macroeconomics: Economic Growth, Fluctuations, and Policy. 6th ed., W.W. Norton, 2005. ISBN: 0393975150
• Ip, Greg. The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World. Revised and Updated, Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2013. ISBN 978-1-118-39157-0
• Kelton, Stephanie. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. Illustrated, Public Affairs, 2020. ISBN: 1541736184
• Mankiw, G. Principles of Economics, 9th ed. Cengage Learning 2020. ISBN 0357038312
• Srinivasan, Bhu. Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism. Reprint, Penguin Books, 2018. ISBN: 0399563814
• ECON Extra Credit with David Brancaccio; https://www.marketplace.org/collection/econ-extra-credit-with-david-brancaccio/
Mathematics and Statistics
• Devlin, Barry. Business unIntelligence: Insight and Innovation Beyond Analytics and Big Data. Technics Publications, LLC, 2013. ISBN: 1935504568
• Page, Scott. The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You. Basic Books; Reprint edition, 2021. ISBN: 1541675711
• Wheelan, Charles. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data; W.W. Norton & Company, 2014. ISBN: 9780393347777
Management and Leadership:
• Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. 10th Anniversary, Bantam, 2005. ISBN: 9780553383713
• Moorhead, Gregory and Griffin, Ricky W. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 10th ed., Houghton Mifflin Co. 2012. ISBN: 0538478136
• Schneider, Susan, and Barsoux, Jean-Louis, Managing Across Cultures, 2nd ed., Harlow, England; Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN: 027364663X
• Tett, Gillian. The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers. Simon & Schuster, 2016. ISBN: 9781451644746
• Twomey, D.P. Employment Discrimination Law: A Manager’s Guide: Text & Cases. 6th ed. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western, 2005. ISBN: 0324271301
• Zhuo, Julie. The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You, Portfolio, 2019. ISBN: 0735219567
Communications:
• Andrei, Peter. How Highly Effective People Speak: How High Performers Use Psychology to Influence With Ease (Speak for Success). Independently published, 2020. ISBN: 9798649598507
• DiMaggio, Anthony. Selling War, Selling Hope: Presidential Rhetoric, the News Media, and U.S. Foreign Policy since 9/11. SUNY Press. 2015. ISBN: 1438457960
• Dominick, J.R. The Dynamics of Mass Communication: Media in the Digital Age, 11th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2010. ISBN: 0073378887
• Hobbs, Renee. Media Literacy in Action: Questioning the Media. Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. ISBN: 1538115271
• Houston, B. (eds) The investigative reporter’s handbook: a guide to documents, databases, and techniques, 5th ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. ISBN: 0312589972
• Itule, B.D. and Anderson, D.A., News Writing and Reporting for Today’s Media, 7th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006. ISBN: 0072981091
• Lipschultz, Jeremy Harris. Social Media Communication: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law and Ethics, 3rd ed. Routledge, 2020. ISBN 9780367195007
• Osborn, M., and Osborn, S. Public Speaking, 9th ed. Houghton Mifflin, 2012. ISBN: 0205912257
• Reddi, Narasimha. Effective Public Relations and Media Strategy. 3rd ed. PHI Learning, 2019. ISBN: 9388028899
• Rider, Toby. Cold War Games: Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Sport and Society). University of Illinois Press, 2016. ISBN: 0252081692
• Samovar, L.A. Porter R.E., and McDaniel, E.R. eds. Intercultural Communication: A reader, 13th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2011. ISBN: 0495898317
• Ting-Toomey, Stella, and Leeva C. Chung. Understanding Intercultural Communication. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. ISBN: 019973979X
Consular and Immigration
• Carens, Joseph H. Immigrants and the Right to Stay. MIT, 2010. ISBN: 0262014831
• Joppke, Christian. Citizenship and Immigration. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010. ISBN: 0745642357
• Motomura, Hiroshi. Americans in Waiting, The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States, Oxford University Press, Inc. 2006. ISBN: 0195163451
• Yang, Jia Lynn, et al. One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle over American Immigration, 1924–1965. HighBridge, 2020. ISBN: 0393635848