Encounters: A Lifetime Spent Crossing Cultural Frontiers

"What a story, told with verve, insight, and a sense of history! I suspect it of being a classic." Mark Peattie, Stanford University. "One of the most fascinating and unusual memoirs I have ever read." Doug Merwin, MerwinAsia. A carefree child of expatriate parents at age 10, a prisoner of the Japanese at 16, a valued source of intelligence to the U.S. military at 19, and a fervent advocate of public diplomacy throughout his long career as a Foreign Service Officer, Clifton Forster spent his life crossing and recrossing frontiers, determined to use dialogue, not conflict, to solve differences between nations. In 2007, a year after her husband's death, Nancy Forster began to sort through the wealth of papers Cliff had tucked away in a Japanese tea chest, and to reexamine her own memories and writings from nearly 60 years of shared international adventures. Her compelling memoir could serve as a blueprint for a U.S. government newly dedicated to building bridges across frontiers.