In her book, Jane spectacularly reveals the complexity of the relationship that is depicted in the historical building of the America's embassy building programs worldwide. She interlinks the history of architectural designing of the embassies with politics and power supremacy as the leading genre in her writing. The author vividly displays her prowess in writing by colorfully describing the architectural designs in details and tries to connect these models with the intended message the architecture sought to put across during the building process. The author has attempted to explain on the message America as a nation has with time attempted to deliver to the world through the constructions of these embassies. There have been much dynamics that have occurred over time, and American architecture has somehow been forced to change their designing with mixed success so as to represent itself in the best way possible worldwide.
The point of view portrayed in her book is that the history of American cultural architecture has with time been influenced by the need for a good diplomacy representation internationally. The author gives a case scenario of the unfolding of history that has influenced the architecture design changes. She provides a case example of how terrorism forced the American government to change its archived aesthetic strategies of building the embassies into more secure designs. For instance, "in 1998 there was twin bombing by terrorists occurring in Nairobi in Kenya and Dar es Salam in Tanzania which destroyed the United States embassies situated in the two countries” (Loeffler, 2011). In its diplomatic conquest, the American responded by coming up with a new building program called overseas building operations (OBO) hence replacing a former FBO the old bureau before the bombing (Loeffler, 2011). Well, I agree with the author's point of view since she has a valid claim and substantiates her point of argument with a relevant example. The change in bureau immediately after the attacks in itself speaks volumes in that there was a great impact. The Bureau was further given the mandates to foresee that there were standard specifications in the building of embassies internationally which would improve security, control costs and speed productions (Loeffler, 2011). The implication in the shifting of building standard modeled embassies internationally adds weight to her point of view.
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In her book, the author depicts some strength in her writing. The fact that she manages to interlink the title of the book with its contents is strength in itself. She insightfully and precisely researches on the architectural and diplomacy of American history from the early 19th century and interlinks the two with the dynamics of the time. Additionally, the author also makes valid and strong claims which are backed up with relevant examples to support her point of arguments. In her writing, she uses the architectural designs used in the construction of American embassies worldwide to support her claim that America uses architectural designs as an effort to demonstrate her diplomacy with other countries. She takes the reader on a journey of accounts of history and how they have unfolded due to the changing dynamics using the simple language that is friendly to the user and examples that are verifiable. The fact that the book is written on aspects of continuous developments it leaves the reader in suspense on whether the writer will continuously write so as to develop the changes years after it was written. Since this aspect is an overlying challenge, it thus begs the question of whether the writer will maintain the pace hence posing as a weakness.
The quality of the book is without a doubt good. The book is very informative as it gives historical and architectural information thus useful for readers and researchers who are interested in architectural and historical data. Additionally, it is insightful as it has valid concepts which are well illustrated with relevant examples hence the book serves its purpose. More so the author has a broad knowledge in both the field of history and architecture hence making the information written widely credible and professional.
References
Loeffler, J. C. (2011). The architecture of diplomacy: Building America's embassies . New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
