"Told with humor and humility, The Back Channel brings all the behind-the-scenes efforts into the light, and brings readers into the room to share the journey of a talented, tough-minded diplomat par excellence who served as conduit and catalyst in making America stronger."--John Kerry

"The Back Channel deserves to be widely read--it's a great book filled with fascinating stories and the kind of wisdom that is sorely needed these days."--George P. Shultz

"Bill Burns, one of the most respected diplomats of the post-Cold War years, has now written what I regard as the best diplomatic memoir of that period--must reading for anyone looking back on an era that's now ending, and for any young person looking forward to diplomacy as a profession in whatever era is likely to come."--John Lewis Gaddis, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University

"An engaging tale of modern statecraft full of fascinating eyewitness accounts of several important events in modern international history . . . Burns's compelling, fast-paced, and witty narrative is necessary reading for America's next generation of diplomats."--Condoleezza Rice