John Dickson offers these "stories with a history" to highlight the interaction between history and foreign relations and to underscore the costs of not knowing the history of our partners and adversaries, much less our own. In both Mexico and Canada in particular our lack of knowledge and understanding of how our long history of military interventions continues to complicate our efforts at developing mutually beneficial relationships with our two closest neighbors. In Nigeria and South Africa, Dickson experienced firsthand how the history of racism in the United States plays out on a world stage and clouds our ability to effectively work with key African nations. Perhaps the starkest example of history shock, of two nations with deeply conflicted views of their own histories and their shared history, is another country near at hand, Cuba. Not all of the gaps are too wide for bridge building; in Peru, Dickson provides an example of how history can be deployed to mutual advantage.
The Foreign Service has long sought to improve its training, to provide some form of "playbook" or "operating manual" with systematic case studies for its officers. In History Shock Dickson provides not only a model for such case studies but also a unique contribution of an interpretive framework for how to remedy this deficit, including recommendations for strengthening historical literacy in the Foreign Service.
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