Window Seat on the World rated an Amazon Bestseller and
Independent Book Publishers Association Ben Franklin Award Winner!

“As intimate a look into the working life of our top diplomats as readers are likely to encounter anywhere. Exciting and thought provoking, to be sure, but also an unobstructed view of some of the most consequential foreign policy and national security events of this century so far. Window Seat on the World is a firsthand account showing that high stakes politics are ultimately about people; the ones making decisions and those who are impacted … including me!”

-Jason Rezaian, author, Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison;
Washington Post columnist, former Tehran bureau chief, and hostage in Iran

#1 Kindle New Release in International Diplomacy and
2020 Silver Medalist in IBPA Political & Current Events Category

I held off writing a book during my long reporting career because I wanted to make sure I had something to say, but Window Seat on the World is still a story I never expected to tell.

In 2013, John Kerry surprised me by calling my cellphone. The Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate asked if I wanted to work on his communications team while he served as secretary of State.

I was at mid-life, had achieved many professional goals as a journalist, and the second of my two sons was nearly out of college. I wasn’t looking for a new job but quickly realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I grabbed it.

During the next four years, we traveled over 1.35 million miles to 91 countries across all seven continents. I saw and did things I’d only dreamed.

Our travels also prompted a lot of questions from my family and friends. “What kind of plane do you fly?” “What gets said in those meetings?” “Were you ever scared?” “What’s the favorite place you visited?”

This book is my effort to answer them, and to share more of what I learned.

I write about the history and unique culture of the U.S. State Department, the country’s first cabinet agency and the most forward-deployed element of its government. There’s looks at the diplomacy behind the Middle East peace talks and Iranian nuclear negotiations, both returning to the spotlight with the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. I also explain the unique challenge of dealing with the Chinese, especially illuminating with their leaders’ efforts to conceal the COVID-19 emergence, and how the predicate was laid for Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In addition, I detail Secretary Kerry’s unusual focus on climate change, which made more and more sense based on our travels from pole to pole and to points in between. It was the biggest revelation of my experience.

All of these issues remain current events, especially after President Biden tapped the secretary to serve as his special climate envoy, and former colleagues like Tony Blinken, Jen Psaki, John Kirby and Jon Finer returned to the State Department, White House and Pentagon.

During our journey together, I took more than 100,000 photos in an added role as our official travel photographer. A number of these color pictures are in the book and on this site.

I shot them from Pope Francis’s private office in the Vatican to the gilded halls of the Kremlin and behind the black-lacquered door at No. 10 Downing Street. I also clicked away on a boat barreling up the Mekong River and on helicopters flying over Antarctica, the Dead Sea, and - more ominously - Baghdad and Kabul.

Finally, the book includes a selection of vignettes giving some offbeat color from the road. Included is a description of my favorite two days on the job.

The words and images join to tell what I saw and did while the landscape scrolled past my window seat on the world. The story is timely as the public seeks history and context behind the coronavirus, impeachment inquiry, military posturing with Iran, and troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I’m thrilled to be working with Disruption Books of Austin, Texas, a great indie publisher, to bring you this story.

I’m also honored Window Seat on the World was named a 2020 Silver Medalist in the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Awards given annually by the Independent Book Publishers Association.

It’s especially gratifying knowing there were almost 1,700 entrants in the contest.

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Window Seat on the World is being distributed worldwide, sold through bookstores - both national and independent - and available to public libraries through the network of Ingram, Baker & Taylor.

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“A terrific recollection of a journey, and thoughtful insights about the importance of diplomacy, brought to life by his behind-the-scenes photos. Give it a read.”

-John Kerry, former U.S. Secretary of State

“Just as Johnson served the country’s 68th Secretary of State, Window Seat on the World serves as a judicious companion to Kerry’s 2018 autobiography, Every Day Is Extra. …(Johnson’s) precise documentation, from the mundane moments to the monumental, has the cumulative effect of restoring some dignity to the idea of public service.”

-James Sullivan, author/critic, Arts Section, Boston Sunday Globe

“An invaluable book for anyone who cares about America's role in the world and the dedicated public servants who carry our mission abroad.”

-Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent

“I loved it. It’s like a textbook for how to work in diplomacy, and I hope that people read it for generations who want to get into that line of work - and it’s a wonderful, wonderful line of work.”

-John Berman, Anchor, CNN’s “New Day”

“Glen Johnson is John Kerry's Boswell, and this book is the window on history that diplomats and scholars will turn to when they want to supplement dusty cables and memoranda with a vivid, human, insider's account of Kerry and the Obama Administration's dealings with Iran, Russia, China, climate change, and other global challenges.”

-John A. Farrell, best-selling biographer, author, Richard Nixon: The Life;
former member, Spotlight Team, The Boston Globe

“Window Seat on the World gives us a rare, inside look at diplomacy as it is practiced at the highest level. An important and revealing read.”

-Ambassador (ret.) Nicholas Burns, Harvard University professor;
former Undersecretary of State, former State Department spokesman

“Glen Johnson offers a unique look at the U.S. State Department and the many challenges of American diplomacy. Writing with the skill of a former news reporter and the access granted a staff member, Johnson provides fresh perspective on John Kerry’s remarkable career of public service, including descriptions of his patience, creativity, and the special skills he brought to a job perfectly suited to his background. This is a rare insider/outsider perspective on someone who has lived in the state, national, and international spotlight for so long.”

-Ambassador (ret.) Alan Solomont, Dean, Tisch College of Public Service,
Tufts University; former Finance Chairman, Democratic National Committee