Scot Marciel’s career as a diplomat in the US State Department spanned thirty-seven years. Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia covers thirty-five of those years, providing an overview of relations between the United States and Southeast Asia from 1985 to 2020. Unusually for a career US Foreign Service officer, Marciel spent most of his time directly involved in or overseeing matters pertaining to one region—save for seven years split between work on South America and southern Europe. This experience gave Marciel extensive and direct contact across much of Southeast Asia, especially at the elite levels.

Like many government bureaucracies, the State Department tends to have more generalists who work on a range of issues across their careers rather than specialists with concentrated points of focus. Expertise tends to come in the form of political appointees or consultants recruited for their issue or area-specific knowledge and ties. Political appointees often, but not always, carry partisan affiliations. This is what makes Marciel different: as a career diplomat, he had a distinctive vantage point as an expert on Southeast Asia within the US government regardless of the political stripes of the president in the White House. In Imperfect Partners, he brings readers through the evolution of US involvement and interest in Southeast Asia from Reagan through Trump.

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