ABSTRACT
In a personal perspective, drawn from a more than three-decade, humanities-grounded career as a diplomat, M. André Goodfriend illustrates how diplomacy can be seen as among the most entrepreneurial of professions, with diplomats regularly taking on risk to create value of global impact, not only going far beyond the impact of business start-ups, but also creating the environment in which businesses and societies can flourish. He describes how his humanities education, focusing on languages, philosophy, history and religion provided him an understanding of the power of language to create and shape the world around us. And then, beyond simply providing an understanding of the wondrous diversity of cultures in which we live, a humanities foundation provided the tools to navigate within that diversity and create structures that unite nations toward shared goals.
