Entering its third year, the International Tribunal for Sierra Leone trial of Charles Taylor on charges of crimes against humanity took an odd twist when supermodel Naomi Campbell was asked to testify about uncut ‘blood diamonds’ she had received from Taylor in South Africa in 1997. To most everyone’s surprise, she declined to testify.

“I confess,” writes Stan Greenberg in the introduction to Dispatches from the War Room, “I’m a member of ‘the pollster industrial complex.’” Greenberg’s fascinating new book recounts his experiences working as a consultant to five leaders – Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Britain’s Tony Blair, Israel’s Ehud Barak, and Bolivia’s Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada – all of whom knew or discovered that engaging with popular opinion was necessary to govern effectively in a democracy.