American Negotiating Behavior

Richard Solomon and Nigel Quinney drew on interviews with more than fifty experienced negotiators from around the world, plus written contributions from eleven international experts, to build a four-archetype portrait of how Americans bargain: the pragmatic dealmaker, the legal eagle, the superpower bully, and the moralist-preacher. Former Secretary of State George Shultz called it 'a goldmine,' and the United States Institute of Peace Press is the right institutional home for a book of this scope and seriousness. The four-archetype framework is memorable enough to actually use in practice, which matters for a policy text. The honest caveats: the analysis is almost entirely from the counterpart's view of American behavior, so the American reader gets a useful mirror but not a balanced two-sides account; and pre-2010 diplomatic norms have shifted in ways the book cannot reflect. Still an essential reference for anyone who negotiates with or against American officials.