In the second half of the twentieth century, a combination of domestic and international factors prompted U.S. presidents to make personal diplomacy a “central feature of how America engages with the world” (11). In his richly detailed and expansive exploration of this process, Tizoc Victor Chavez convincingly argues that existing scholarship has underestimated the importance of the U.S. president’s role as diplomat in chief, with certain key summits or individual relationships covered extensively by historians but few studies offering a comprehensive and expansive analysis. Addressing this shortcoming, Chavez operates from a broad definition of presidential personal diplomacy that includes “direct communication between presidents and their foreign counterparts, whether face to face, through correspondence, or on the telephone,” (3) and works chronologically through each president from Franklin Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush, paying particular attention to presidential travel and the cultivation of crucial relationships. A final chapter connects the case studies to some overarching theories, such as Samuel Huntington’s categories of institutionalization (195–196), before a brief conclusion emphasizes the continuing relevance of presidential personal diplomacy, notably that of Donald Trump. In doing so, Chavez traces the evolution o