"Blueprint for Action" makes Foreign Affairs bestseller list for year 2005

Exciting to see this come over the "wire," especially since my second book arrived so late in the year (hard to see how BFA got 8 weeks in for sales given the timing of this announcement).

Kind of weird to see BFA instead of PNM, since Vol. I spent four months (Jan-Apr) on the list while BFA spent only two (Nov-Dec), but there it is.

Nice to see BFA recognized this way. Figure PNM would have made any 2004 year-end list, since it scored 7 months on the list, but Foreign Affairs began the list in March 2004, so I guess they were waiting for a full year to do the end-of-year list.

So this is a nice end-of-year bit of recognition for Vol. II. Gives me hope that I can sell somebody on Vol. III.

Here is the complete "top 20" list of hardcover bestsellers on American foreign policy and international affairs for 2005, based on Jan-Dec sales at Barnes & Noble:

INTL. INTELLIGENCE

'Foreign Affairs' lists best-sellers

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Thomas L. Friedman's "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century" has been named the top-selling book in Foreign Affairs' first-ever best-seller list.

The listing is the first ranking compiled by Foreign Affairs, the prestigious bimonthly journal published by the Council on Foreign Relations, in conjunction with Barnes & Noble booksellers.

The list ranks the 20 top-selling books on American foreign policy and international affairs. It includes the text of each book review as written in Foreign Affairs.

The first best-seller list from the house journal of the U.S. foreign policy establishment is as follows:

1. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

2. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Jared Diamond (Viking)

3. China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World Ted C. Fishman (Scribner)

4. The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror Natan Sharansky (PublicAffairs)

5. 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (W.W. Norton & Company; Barnes & Noble Books)

6. The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq George Packer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

7. Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground Robert D. Kaplan (Random House)

8. First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan Gary C. Schroen (Presidio Press)

9. Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Secret Saudi-U.S. Connection Gerald L. Posner (Random House)

10. The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy T.R. Reid (Penguin Press)

11. Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East Clyde Prestowitz (Basic Books)

12. The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God George Weigel (Basic Books)

13. Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War Anthony Shadid (Henry Holt and Company)

14. The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair Martin Meredith (PublicAffairs)

15. Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power David J. Rothkopf (PublicAffairs)

16. America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies George Friedman (Doubleday)

17. Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating Thomas P.M. Barnett (Putnam)

18. John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics Richard Parker (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

19. The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War Andrew Bacevich (Oxford University Press)

20. The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved Alan Dershowitz (John Wiley and Sons)

© Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Here is the link to the list: http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051215-051645-8397r.