The Naked Diplomat

Who will be in power in the 21st century? Governments? Big business? Internet titans? And how do we influence the future?

Digital technology is changing power at a faster rate than any time in history. Distrust and inequality are fuelling political and economic uncertainty. The scaffolding built around the global order is fragile, and the checks and balances created over centuries to protect liberty are being tested, maybe to destruction. Tom Fletcher, the youngest senior British ambassador for two hundred years, considers how we – as governments, businesses, individuals – can survive and thrive in the twenty first century. And how we can ensure that technology can make it easier of citizens truly to take back control.

Reviews

‘A riveting personal insight into the reality of international relations’
Charlie Burton, GQ

‘Articulate, intelligent and immensely readable … Fletcher is an irrepressible optimist and his enthusiasm is contagious. Britain is fortunate to have diplomats with his skills and drive’
Emma Sky, New Statesman

‘Welcome to Britain’s new brand of diplomacy’
Evening Standard

‘On Her Majesty’s Service, in a new way. Britain’s mould-breaking ambassador was appointed at only 36 at the height of the Arab Uprisings. Fletcher’s Naked Diplomacy was a new brand of 21st-century statecraft: flexible transparent, engaged with the public as much as with politicians’
BBC World Service

"A call for us all to reconsider our place in society and in our interconnected world. It urges us to be brave, creative, involved and connected. Diplomacy, he insists, is too important to be left to diplomats and he calls on us “citizen diplomats” to engage with it, to wield power … As the pages turned, I thought this read increasingly as a new manifesto, and I finished it thinking how unsurprised I would be if Fletcher ended up running the Foreign Office, or the country’
Anthony Sattin, Observer

‘Brilliant, funny polemic … a cracking read’
Roger Boyes
The Times (11 June 2016)

‘A brilliant book’
Stig Abell, LBC and Editor of the Times Literary Supplement

‘A diplomatic genius’
Gordon Brown

About the author

Tom Fletcher CMG is Visiting Professor of International Relations at New York University, and the UK's former Ambassador to Lebanon. He advises the Global Business Coalition for Education and the Emirates Diplomatic Academy, and chairs the International Advisory Board of the Creative Industries Federation. Tom is married to Dr Louise Fletcher, a psychologist, and they have two sons.