The Practice of Public Diplomacy

"What is the future of public diplomacy in the digital age? Ambassador Rugh s field guide to American public diplomacy validates the first principle of success: personal contact. The shortsightedness of American engagement abroad is echoed by the contributors call for additional resources when the trend over four decades is the opposite. The book is not only a chronicle of how public diplomacy is conducted abroad, but also serves as a cry to restore America s public engagement to a level commensurate with our national interests." - Barry Fulton, Vice Chair, InterMedia Board of Directors, and former USIA Associate Director

"Finally, Ambassador William A. Rugh's wonderfully readable, jargon free, eyewitness accounts of what public diplomacy is, how it works and doesn't work, and why the United States desperately needs it, at this moment, is available.You'll never again ask, Why do "they" hate us. " - Bruce S. Gelb, Former Ambassador and Former Director U.S.I.A.

"If there were ever a man qualified to assemble thoughtful essays on the difficult-to-define topic of public diplomacy, it is William A. Rugh, with whom I worked for years. In the Reagan administration, this subject was totally misconstrued, but Rugh has set the record straight in an enormously readable collection of the thoughts of the knowledgeable." - Henry E. Catto, Former Ambassador and Former Director of the United States Information Agency