Читать книгу The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service 1776–1924. Revised Second Edition - Charles Stuart Kennedy - Страница 3

In the intervening years following the publication of this book’s first edition, The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service, 1776–1914 (Greenwood, 1990), I hoped that historians would pick up on the important role of American consuls in the development of U.S. relations with the rest of the world. But that did not happen. As the first edition is no longer in print and had been published with a virtually prohibitive price by a firm that caters to the academic library market, I decided to bring out a new edition in paperback.

This new edition adds the period 1914 to 1924, when the Consular Service was integrated with the Diplomatic Service to form the present-day Foreign Service of the United States. This volume thus adds the work of the Consular Service through the end of World War I, the Greek disaster in Turkey, and Germany in the early years of the Weimar Republic.

On a personal note, I discovered with some chagrin that I had left out a family member in this tribute to the American Consular Service. A few years ago, well after I had published the book, I was playing with the Internet and noted that an entry regarding my grandfather, a Civil War veteran, referred to his father-in-law––my great grandfather Edmund Jüssen––as a fellow veteran. Checking further I found that Great Granddad had been consul general in Vienna between 1885 and 1889. So this obscure title runs in the family: I was consul general four times.

I want to thank the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Kenneth Brown, Margery Thompson, and Marilyn Bentley for their support in encouraging me to bring out this new edition. The Association generously assigned the following interns to help with the editing of the book, and I thank them all: Jennifer Ricketts, Caroline Lemp, Brad Walvert, Biola Ijadare, Mary Larson, and especially Whitney Kipps, who gave particular attention to polishing the work.