Helen Weinland

Living Abroad with Uncle Sam Helen Weinland

In this book, Helen Weinland describes her twenty years of service as a "grunt" in the foreign policy trenches. She answers the question, what does an American diplomat actually do-in hostile host countries and in friendly ones, at work and at play? Helen Weinland was fortunate to be on the scene at interesting times. She was in Prague when the Communist authorities slightly relaxed their policy on contacts with Czech dissidents. She watched Nigeria build a democratic successor government to a military dictatorship, and then fail at the job. And the Berlin Wall fell on her watch. This book describes the texture of life for a particular American foreign service officer, female, single, and bright. Weinland talks about the constant household moves, friendships and loneliness, and medical care and security overseas. She has decided opinions about the way the State Department treats its employees. Every arm chair foreign policy wonk, every would-be diplomat currently taking the State Department entry exam, every citizen who cares about the relations of the United States with the rest of the world should read this book.