Mitchell makes the case for the importance of diplomacy as the world enters a dangerous new era of great-power competition. This richly researched book offers a series of detailed portraits of leaders who used the tools of diplomacy to fend off rival great powers. These figures include a Byzantine emperor who protected his realm from the Huns in the fifth century, the rulers of Renaissance-era Venice who faced the Ottomans, the Habsburg emperors who maneuvered against Frederick the Great in the