Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)International law and diplomacy represent a complex and forbiddingly tangled web to the professional diplomat, let alone the outsider, and therefore a work of this nature needs no further justification than to point out the increasingly interwoven nature of modern global society. This book seeks to clarify and codify the rules and practice of diplomacy after the manner of a classic legal text (Anson's Law of Contract which I once encountered as a law student springs to mind). In this aim it is surely unique, and has been so ever since the first edition written by Sir Ernest Satow in 1917.
In paying homage to Satow's work in the Preface to this sixth edition, the Editor Sir Ivor Roberts - himself a retired diplomat with a wealth of experience - writes 'The book he wrote in 1917 was no dry collection of facts and legal terms. It was suffused with illuminating, interesting, often whimsical, anecdotes, and wise counsel. Nevertheless, when I was invited to edit the first revision for 30 years, I quickly realized that nothing less than radical surgery was required. For diplomacy has changed too much in its practice, if not in its essentials.'
Naturally a work of this importance will require regular updating, because the rules and customs of diplomacy are subject to steady and constant change. Diplomacy, the star and centrepiece of this book, is a living organism just like a living language. It moves on, and cannot be frozen in time.
The Editor and contributors are to be congratulated on making their book readable and casting light on shadowy areas. There are many interesting and some whimsical anecdotes from recent times, of which Satow would have approved. The use of numbered paragraphs as in the first edition is helpful and will facilitate reference to the work. By the way I attended the recent book launch on April 8, 2010 at the British Embassy in Tokyo where I had the pleasure of meeting the Editor for the first time.
Ian Ruxton, author (editor) of several books on the life of Sir Ernest Satow including The Diaries of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister in Tokyo (1895-1900): A Diplomat Returns to Japan
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