Ambassador (ret.) Edward L. Peck presents a concise, organized framework for navigating international relations in Peck’s Postulates, a new volume in the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series. With touches of gentle humor, the author offers four concepts, each explicated with supporting statements and examples. Written as an introduction to the conduct of international relations, the work has, in the author’s view, broader relevance. He states: “Since it is people who decide what nations should do or not do—at whatever level and under whatever political structure—these postulates also apply to individuals’ everyday lives.”

Amb. Peck graduated from high school at 17 and served in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant and, later, paratrooper and first lieutenant during the Korean War before joining the Foreign Service. He served in Sweden, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt, in addition to ambassadorships to Iraq and Mauritania. Since retiring in 1989, he has been engaged in matters of diplomacy and diplomatic education as executive secretary of the American Academy of Diplomacy and as a lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute, at conferences, and on cruise ships.