In the ingeniously named Consolation Prize podcast series, historians affiliated with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University attempt to elucidate and elevate the role of US consul in the conduct of US diplomacy. They operate from the assumption that public understanding of a consul’s function within the larger Department of State and Foreign Service is amorphous and limited at best (for example, representing the United States abroad) and endeavor to explain why consular work is critical to the protection of both Americans and their interests abroad. By focusing on the multiple roles that consuls play—both historically and contemporaneously—and situating these consuls in time and geographic space, the podcast producers allow the listeners to connect these stories to ongoing discussions concerning race, gender, labor, and identity. In so doing, the producers and invited scholars offer a more complicated and, ultimately, more valuable history of...

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