SURRENDER IS NOT AN OPTION Defending America at United Nations and Abroad John Bolton New York: Threshold Editions, 2007. 496pp, US $27.00 cloth (ISBN 1416552847)Before we get onto what this reviewer thinks of John Bolton's memoir, it is worth pondering what Bolton would think of this reviewer. He might not be too positive, as represent a lot of things former American ambassador to United Nations doesn't like. Firstly, I'm British, and he's wary of intellectually snobbish Brits (210). I'm even the son of a British diplomat, an epithet he applies with particular disdain to one minor opponent (201). There are ideological as well as genealogical issues: am a qualified believer in international potential of European Union, which must make me one of EUroids (204), whose advocacy of international norms and multilateralism profoundly threatens to diminish American autonomy and self-government, notions that to spell 'sovereignty' (429). Worst of all, think that UN also has real value (if you require page references, you're missing point-we're talking about John Bolton).Unsurprisingly, Surrender is Not an Option is not aimed at likes of me. Bolton states that his audience is to be found in Middle America. He is concerned that many of his fellow nationals are too easily beguiled by multilateral institutions, and specifically UN. For them, the United Nations to this day remains UN of UNICEF trick-or-treating on Halloween, and of famine-relief efforts in natural disasters, or combating diseases in developing countries (197). A prominent critic of UN since 1980s and an unremittingly controversial ambassador in New York from mid-2005 to December 2006, author now sets out to disillusion who still think glowingly of UN as they had imagined it on Halloweens long ago (198). His volume may be a first in international relations literature-a book explicitly intended to sour childhood memories.To achieve this goal, he takes through his tenure at UN in extraordinary detail. Surrender is Not an Option is not entirely given over to Mr. Bolton's time in New York: first 40-odd pages canter through majority of his career, culminating in his involvement in 2000 Florida recount (although he says virtually nothing of that episode). There follows a longer description of his period as T, assistant secretary of state for arms control during George W. Bush's first administration that included American withdrawal from anti-ballistic missile treaty and a range of other agreements. It is in this part of book that we encounter author's preferred form of prose-highly involved descriptions of diplomatic negotiations enlivened by breaking of confidences, ad hominem attacks on most other participants, and a lot of jokes. This is style he maintains through main part of book, a prolonged account of his time at UN, which is followed by a much slighter set of thoughts on future challenges.Curiously, most interesting element of entire project may be jokes. We already know quite a lot about humour of Bush administration-Bob Woodward has revealed, for example, that president finds flatulence funny. Bolton, is more interested in verbal repartee, and from time to time he is genuinely witty. Describing a visit by George Clooney to New York to discuss Darfur before security council, he notes that actor was swarmed by female staffers, providing humility lessons, and therefore character-building, for rest of us (356). However, he is best at skewering those he dislikes with one-liners-and he knows it-returning to some victims repeatedly. Taken individually, his put-downs can be brutally effective (watching his British counterpart negotiate, he notes, I often wondered how Britain had acquired an empire, although he proved why they had lost America) but cumulative effect does get tedious (227). …