Parker's experiences in the Foreign Service shed light on many aspects of U.S. diplomacy in the Near East, an area of continuing interest and concern today. In this memoir, Richard Parker takes a look at his own life, the people and times around him, and comments on the thorny Middle East issues and the foreign and domestic potentates with whom he dealt. He writes tellingly of his (sometimes perilous) service in Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and as U.S. ambassador in Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco. His memoir not only offers a first-person viewpoint and analysis of historic events and...