The 2010 WikiLeaks release of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables has made it eminently clear that there is a vast gulf between the public face of diplomacy and the opinions and actions that take place behind embassy doors. In At Home with the Diplomats, Iver B. Neumann offers unprecedented access to the inner workings of a foreign ministry. Neumann worked for several years at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he had an up-close view of how diplomats conduct their business and how they perceive their own practices. In this book he shows us how diplomacy is conducted on a day-to-day basis.

Approaching contemporary diplomacy from an anthropological perspective, Neumann examines the various aspects of diplomatic work and practice, including immunity, permanent representation, diplomatic sociability, accreditation, and issues of gender equality. Neumann shows that the diplomat working abroad and the diplomat at home are engaged in two different modes of knowledge production. Diplomats in the field focus primarily on gathering and processing information. In contrast, the diplomat based in his or her home capital is caught up in the seemingly endless production of texts: reports, speeches, position papers, and the like. Neumann leaves the reader with a keen sense of the practices of diplomacy: relations with foreign ministries, mediating between other people's positions while integrating personal and professional into a cohesive whole, adherence to compulsory routines and agendas, and, above all, the generation of knowledge. Yet even as they come to master such quotidian tasks, diplomats are regularly called upon to do exceptional things, such as negotiating peace.

2010年维基解密发布的25万份美国外交电报清楚地表明，外交的公众形象与大使馆门后的意见和行动之间存在着巨大的鸿沟。在《与外交官在一起》一书中，伊弗-B-诺伊曼提供了前所未有的机会来了解外交部的内部运作。诺伊曼在挪威外交部工作了几年，在那里他近距离观察了外交官如何开展工作以及他们如何看待自己的做法。在这本书中，他向我们展示了外交工作的日常开展情况。

从人类学的角度切入当代外交，诺伊曼研究了外交工作和实践的各个方面，包括豁免权、常驻代表、外交交际能力、认证以及性别平等问题。诺伊曼表明，在国外工作的外交官和在国内的外交官从事的是两种不同的知识生产模式。外地的外交官主要侧重于收集和处理信息。相比之下，驻在本国首都的外交官则陷入了看似无休止的文本生产中：报告、演讲、立场文件等等。诺伊曼给读者留下了对外交实践的敏锐感觉：与外交部的关系、在其他人的立场之间进行调解，同时将个人和职业整合成一个凝聚的整体、遵守强制性的常规和议程，以及最重要的，知识的产生。然而，即使他们掌握了这些琐碎的任务，外交官也经常被要求做一些特殊的事情，如和平谈判。