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The ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ Philosophical Society has awarded SIS Professor Sarah B. SnyderÌý²¹Ìý to help with library and archival expenses related to her current book project, Unofficial Diplomats: How Overseas ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵs Have Shaped U.S. Foreign Relations (under contract with Princeton University Press). 

Unofficial Diplomats is a history of ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵs abroad and how they have influenced U.S. foreign policy. The book analyzes the impact of expatriates from early ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ missionaries through the kidnapping of ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ academics in Lebanon in the 1980s. Mapping overseas ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ outposts and influence reveals an ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ network of schools, churches, clubs, and even cemeteries constructed by missionaries, teachers, ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵpeople, and journalists.

Over time the role of these ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵs evolved – from early ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ pioneers, to those who forged colonies overseas, to individuals who persisted as representatives of the United States in increasingly hostile communities. They served as unofficial diplomats, representing the United States when formal relations did not exist or functioning as informal ambassadors to foreign communities alongside official U.S. representatives. Unofficial Diplomats uncovers how private ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ citizens shaped the place of the United States in the world.

Snyder is a historian who specializes in the influence of nonstate actors such as human rights activists and overseas ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵs on U.S. foreign relations. She is the author of From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy (Columbia University Press, 2018), which explains how transnational connections and 1960s-era social movements inspired ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵs to advocate for a new approach to human rights. The Society for Historians of ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ Foreign Relations awarded it the 2019 Robert H. Ferrell Prize for distinguished scholarship in the history of ÓñÃ×ÊÓƵ foreign relations.