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 raging 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 Eliasson’s remarkable diplomatic career--including Swedish diplomat, president of the United Nations General Assembly, and Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations--and scrutinizes the innumerable lessons he has learned which are applicable to our current period of ＂maximum danger＂ in global affairs. Combining elements of idealism and realism, Eliasson helps us understand the substance, theater, and spirit of diplomacy--statecraft, stagecraft, and soulcraft on the world stage. 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.

Historian John Shaw analyzes this master diplomat and 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. This book shows what must be done to confront this pivotal moment so ＂the bad guys stop winning＂ and the forces of rationality, fairness, and pluralism prevail--or at least have a fighting chance.

John T. Shaw is a historian, long-time Washington, D.C. journalist, and currently the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute in Illinois. His work and books have been featured on C-SPAN’s Book TV, PBS NewsHour and C-SPAN. He has published articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, and The American Interest. He has been a contributing writer to the Washington Diplomat magazine for over 25 years and writes the monthly ＂Better Politics, Smarter Government＂ column that is distributed to 400 papers in Illinois.

Shaw has been a media fellow at the Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and is a member of Biographer’s International, a group devoted to advancing biographical writing. He has given book-related presentations at the U.S. Senate Library, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, the U.S. Archives, the Hoover Institution, and the German Marshall Fund.

As the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, he has extensive contacts in the academic and public policy world. He created and hosts ＂Understanding Our New World,＂ on ongoing Zoom series of hour-long conversations with influential and astute people such as Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland; Leon Panetta, former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director; William Burns, current Director of the CIA; Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation; Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America; and Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations. The discussions have been viewed live by thousands of people, tens of thousands have watched on YouTube, and they are now heard as the SimonCast podcast. Guest have also included five Pulitzer Prize winners, who Shaw is confident will write blurbs for The Education of a Statesman.

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute is a member of the Association for Congressional Centers and his connections with the directors of more than three dozen public policy centers across the country will bring greater attention to this book.