BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS

The Ambassadors

From Ancient Egypt to the Nation State

Author: Dr. Jonathan Wright, PhD

Publisher: HarperCollins Press (May 2006)

Reviewed by The Ambassadors Research Foundation

Dr. Jonathan Wright, PhD studied at the universities of St. Andrew's, Pennsylvania and Oxford, where he gained his Doctorate in History in 1998. His first book, The Jesuits: Missions, Myths and History, has been translated into ten languages. His interesting 336-page book, The Ambassadors, includes 5 chapters: The Ancient World, The Middle Centuries, Medieval, Renaissance, and Towards the Enlightenment. The qualified historian succeeded by digging in ancient history to write this well-researched fascinating book about international communications and the ambassadors. In all the chapters and eras, he presented interesting data about diplomatic gifts given by ambassadors to the rulers of the countries where they served their missions of faith, economics, trade and love. The book demonstrates how influential ambassadors have been in the encounters, collisions and rivalries between the world's desperate civilizations. The book discusses issues such as diplomatic immunity, diplomatic precedence and diplomatic gift-giving.

The first section focuses on the ancient world during the Pharaonic era, classical Athens, Mauryan India and Han Dynasty China - three of the storm centres of diplomacy from the 4th - 5th century B.C. Among the oldest surviving written records of diplomacy are the Amarna letters, several hundred clay tablets discovered at the end of the 19th century, with their faded cuneiform inscriptions record the relations between the pharaohs and the greater and lesser kingdoms of the ancient Near East - Babylon, Assyria, and the rest - around 3400 years ago.

The second section moves forward to the 9th century A.D. and tackles the Byzantine Empire, the early Islamic Caliphates and emperor Charlemagne as its points of departure.

The third section visits the Middle Ages, discussing ambassadorial adventures provoked by the Mongol invasion of the 13th century and the rise of new diplomacy in 15th century Italy, as well as religious upheavals and worldwide explorations of the 16th century. The era of Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire, that eventually stretched from Hungary to Korea, was presented by the author in this section.

The fourth chapter of Renaissance looks at the reformation, schisms, and the relationship between Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

The last section of the book brings the reader to the dawn of the modern ambassadorial age, in the period of the European Enlightenment.

The book discusses Pharaonic, Chinese, Indian, Greek, Islamic, Ottoman, Macedonian, Moroccan, Roman, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, Vietnamese and Papal diplomacy.

It offers interesting data about diplomacy in the era of Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, Vasco da Gama, Habsburg family, Mauryan Empire and Khalifa Haroun Al-Rachid.

The author mentioned in the introduction, "The book has a very simple purpose: to demonstrate just how influential ambassadors have been in the encounters, collisions, and rivalries between the world's disparate civilizations. How did issues such as diplomatic immunity, diplomatic precedence, or diplomatic gift-giving develop? How did societies decide what qualities an ideal ambassador ought to possess?"

This is a book of journeys, a book about the individuals who, far more tangibly than any impersonal force of history, wrote the human story. Dr. Jonathon Wright mentioned that "sometimes ambassadors would travel absurd distances, as did the 13th century monks, who trekked from Beijing to Paris and from Flanders to Asian steppe. Sometimes they journeyed no further than the nearest Greek city-state, or from one Renaissance court to another. They could be vile, snobbish, and stupid, or they could be astute, sympathetic and wise, but, through all their missions, ambassadors were an inevitable facet of human history - offering an obvious way for squabbling rivals, potential allies and scattered civilizations to meet."

Cultural Dialogue & Diplomatic Gifts

Animal gifts include donkeys, elephants, giraffes, horses, bears, dogs, lions, monkeys, leopards and rhinoceroses, including tusks and horns. Metals gifts include gold, silver and copper. Human gifts included dwarfs and young girls while clothing gifts included silk and velvet.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt ordered hunting parties that traveled as far as Somalia to capture monkeys and leopards.
By 92 B.C., the Chinese ambassador was laying silks at the feet of King Mithridates II, king of Parthia, which lay southeast of the Caspian Sea. He returned the complement, dispatching the ambassador to China with an ostrich egg and a troop of conjurors. Two hundred years after that, the envoys of a Roman emperor brought elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns and tortoise shells to the Chinese court.
In 638 A.D. the Persians were sending the Chinese a ferret, that was an expert mice-catcher; a century later, they sent the Chinese four leopards.
The Romans won favour by presenting gold necklaces to British tribal leaders.
In 693 A.D., Arab rulers suggested sending a lion to the Chinese empress.
In the 10th century, dogs sent as gifts from the Hungarian king almost bit the Byzantine emperor's hand.
In 1414, the Chinese emperor was delighted with the creature sent as tribute, via Bengal, from East Africa, which was an African giraffe.
In 1514, the king of Portugal sent a rhinoceros to Pope Leo X.
In 1552, Suleyman the elephant, trekked across central Europe from Genoa to Vienna. He was a present from the Portuguese king to the Holy Roman Emperor. It attracted huge crowds in all the towns and villages through which it passed. Three centuries earlier, Louis IX of France had also presented Henry III of England with an elephant.
Japanese emperors sent a full suite of shogum armour to James I of England in 1613, and an elaborate samurai sword to Queen Victoria two-and-a-half centuries later.
When a Russian ambassador presented James I with a rich Persian dagger and knife in 1617, the king was very pleased.
In the 18th century, Frederich William I of Brussia went so far as sending an entire room, a candlelit Baroque confection of amber panels, mirrors and mosaics, to Peter the Great of Russia, who admired the so-called "Amber Room" during a visit to Berlin in 1712.
The author presented interesting information about the diplomatic gifts throughout time, including Spanish horses, hunting dogs,, elephants, exotic animals, dwarfs, metals, clothes, and furniture. In 1785, the king of Spain sent 2 donkeys to General George Washington, in recognition of his voluntary exploits, and they were graciously received.
In 1827, the pasha of Egypt scored a notable diplomatic triumph by dispatching giraffes to the rulers of England, France and Austria.
In 1839, the emperor of Morocco decided to present the United States with a lion and a lioness. The local counsel tried to reject the gifts but was forced when the Moroccan messenger threatened to release the animals in the streets.
Today, Fidel Castro also limits the distribution of certain brands of luxury cigars as diplomatic gifts.
A Persian ambassador impressed a Mogul emperor with a gift that included 27 Arabian horses, 9 mules, chests of Persian hangings, 40 muskets, 5 clocks, one camel laden with Persian cloth of gold, 21 camels of wine, 14 camels of distilled sweet water, seven of rose water, seven daggers set with stones and 7 Venetian-looking glasses.

Of all the diplomatic gifts, the elephant was perhaps the most impressive. An elephant sent from Louis IX of France to Henry III of England in the 13th century inspired this drawing in Matthew Paris's Chronicle (See image). Henry III's elephant was probably the first such animal seen in England since the times of the Roman invasions. Such an unlikely diplomatic gift was commemorated in this 13the century misericord, still on display in Exter Cathedral.

This well-researched interesting book discusses stories relating to international communications, from different countries, different eras and for different reasons: political, economic, religious, cultural and romance. The enduring relationship between diplomacy and gift giving has outlasted kingdoms and empires.