After the collapse of the USSR, Kyrgyzstan, despite its isolation and lack of development, was considered to be one of…
Virtual Student Foreign Service Interns 2016-2017
Blair Boyd Blair is a senior linguistics major at Macalester College in Minnesota. She hopes to use this internship as…
Thailand’s Bloodless Coups d’état
When a country undergoes internal conflict and something as dramatic as a coup d’etat, the results can often lead to…
Sputnik, The Ugly American, and the Push to Improve FSI Language Training
In the depths of the Cold War, the USSR in 1957 launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth.…
The U.S. Returns Okinawa to Japan, 1971
In 1945, towards the end of World War II, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps invaded Okinawa with 185,000 troops; a third of the…
It’s Feng Shui or the Highway: Building the Chinese Embassy in Washington with I. M. Pei
Feng shui seeks to promote prosperity, good health, and general well-being by examining how energy, qi, (pronounced “chee”), flows through…
From Russia with Love and Back Again: Rostropovich’s Exile and Return
Mstislav Rostropovich, considered one of the greatest cellists of the twentieth century, was born in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan…
How Did We Get Here? A Look Back at the Creation of the European Union
Welcome to Part I of our crash course on the formation of the European Union (EU). Each treaty signed between 1948…
Spain’s Post-Franco Emergence from Dictatorship to Democracy
Spanish leader Francisco Franco died November 20, 1975 at the age of 82 after 36 years in power, first as…
We Don’t Give a Dam — The Feud Over Financing the Aswan High Dam
Egypt’s agriculture has always depended on the water of the Nile; the river’s perennial floods, while critical in replenishing the…