Sri Lankan-born American scholar and diplomat Dr Patrick Mendis launched his new book titled, TRADE for PEACE: How the DNA of America, Freemasonry, and Providence Created a New World Order with Nobody in Charge recently. The book argues that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the final frontier of the American Experiment to bind the community of nations together.
His interdisciplinary exploration - the production of a quarter century of teaching, research and global travel - has earned much praise in academic, diplomatic and development circles. Professor Mendis currently serves as the Vice President of the Osgood Center for International Studies and a visiting scholar in foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. An Adjunct Professor of Diplomacy at Norwich University and a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, Mendis is an alumnus of the Harvard Executive Leadership Program at the Kennedy School of Government and the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
Lincoln Bloomfield, MIT Professor of Political Science Emeritus and National Security Council Director under President Jimmy Carter, describes the book as "a tour de force." He adds, "Americans from other cultures sometimes show the keenest sense of this nation's values. In this insightful work, Patrick Mendis approaches the American narrative with a sharp scholarly edge, drawing richly on America's classical roots, including a near-mystical appreciation of Freemasonry in the political architecture of the new American order."