No better book could have launched the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series than Peter Eicher’s “Emperor Dead” and Other Historic American Dispatches. The dispatches tell their own story—of remarkable Americans most of whom served their country “well and faithfully,” in the words of the ambassadorial oath. They provide insight into the historical circumstances and human side of how the United States over two centuries has related to the world around it.

Starting with the first dispatch in 1776 from Silas Deane in Paris and ending with declassified Vietnam-era cables, Mr. Eicher selected over 260 dispatches, most taken directly from the originals in the National Archives. Many have never before been published or were previously inaccessible.

Eicher’s instructive introduction highlights the role America’s diplomats have played throughout its history. He also provides helpful notes on sources and usage, scene-setting introductory notes to the dispatches, and an index. No other volume provides diplomatic dispatches from all U.S. time frames and all of the world’s regions. Selected for their historical value and as a window into the history of U.S. diplomacy, they document U.S. and world history, politics, and international relations through reports of specific events.

The collection features such notable U.S. envoys as Thomas Jefferson on the storming of the Bastille, John Quincy Adams on Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, Frederick Douglass on Haiti, Henry Morgenthau on Gallipoli and Armenia, Walter Hines Page on the Zimmerman telegram, George Messersmith on Nazi Germany, Joseph C. Grew giving early warning on Pearl Harbor, literary envoys Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and Bret Harte, and a wide array of others reporting on wars, revolutions, historic discoveries, technical achievements, social issues, and natural disasters. Eicher’s research received support from the Una Chapman Cox Foundation.