The Education of a Statesman
How Global Leaders Can Repair a Fractured World
This is a dangerous time—the international system is teetering, jolted by a devastating pandemic, climate change, income inequality, cyber threats, terrorism, authoritarian regimes, nationalist demagogues, and frightened and impatient publics. But the career and hard-earned wisdom of famed diplomat, Jan Eliasson, offers warnings, guidance, and hope.
The Education of a Statesman examines Jan Eliasson’s remarkable career, including as Sweden’s foreign minister, president of the United Nations General Assembly, and UN Deputy Secretary–General. Combining idealism and realism, Eliasson helps us understand the substance, theatre, and spirit of diplomacy—statecraft, stagecraft, and soulcraft. His story provides insights on the complexities of this perilous time and suggests what can be done to renew the international order and calm the raging discontent that has infected international and domestic politics.
This analysis of a master diplomat provides an insider’s perspective on diplomacy and international politics: what happens during backroom meetings, high-profile international conferences, and charged debates at the United Nations. The Education of a Statesman shows what must be done to confront this pivotal moment and ensure that the forces of rationality, fairness, and pluralism prevail—or at least have a fighting chance.
PRAISE
“Shaw has written a twofer: A first-rate primer on the art and science of diplomacy and a fascinating and well-written biography of the Swedish diplomat Jan Eliasson, whose accomplishments in the United Nations and other multilateral forums are without equal.”
—Donald McHenry, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
—Eliot A. Cohen, Center for Strategic and International Studies
—Barbara K. Bodine, Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University
—Jeffrey Feltman, Brookings Institution, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs
“John T. Shaw has put us in his debt with The Education of a Statesman: How Global Leaders Can Repair a Fractured World. Few outside DC’s diplomatic circles have heard of Swedish ambassador Jan Eliasson, despite rising through the ranks to be deputy secretary general of the United Nations. Shaw remedies that oversight here, but this is no mere biography. He uses Eliasson’s professional life as both commentary and metaphor—field notes and guiding paradigm—and uses the vocation of statecraft to throw light on one of its finest practitioners. As Shaw shows, our fractured world needs more Eliassons.”
—Ruth A. Davis, former Director General of the U.S. Foreign Service