Customer Reviews

Henry Kissinger and the American Century

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In "Henry Kissinger and the American Century," Jeremi Suri has chronicled the political history of arguably one of the world's most brilliant personalities. Suri's book leaves out much of Kissinger's personal history, beyond his childhood in Weimar and Nazi Germany, which is generally vague. "Henry Kissinger and the American Century" does, however, provide readers with the background necessary to begin to understand the man and his policies. Suri pays particular attention to Kissinger's skepticism of democracy, which truly helped shape those policies.
Henry Kissinger is a Cold War oracle, subject to the failings of the human condition as any of us, but arguably far more attuned to the strategic and political situation than anyone ever was.
Suri does not dodge logical criticisms and critics and provides a groundwork for understanding of Kissinger's philosophies. Reading the book, you might notice how just when you begin to forget Kissinger's German-Jewish childhood, Suri extols this fact in context throughout.
The book reveals Kissinger's innate ability to address both his genteel and gentile contemporaries. If any American in history ever leveraged their "outsider" status to the maximum and re-define the idea of an "insider", it was Kissinger.
The book is full of exceptional quotes from Kissinger, his influences and his contemporaries that are no less relevant in the War on Terror than they were in the Cold War.
REVIEW EVERY BOOK YOU READ!

Henry A. Kissinger, one of a handful of memorable secretaries of state, is a German-born Jew haunted by the failure of democracy in his birthplace and the subsequent failure of the world's democracies to stop the Nazi drive for mastery of Europe in the 1930s. Those failures made possible the massive slaughter of World War II, the nearly total destruction of Jewish life in Europe (which marked Kissinger personally)and in its aftermath left the United States and the exercise of its power the main arbiter of the world's fate. Stalin's Soviet Union, however, had other plans.
Kissinger did not view war with Soviet Russia as inevitable, nor did he regard Russian ambitions in Eastern and Central Europe as altogether unreasonable. But he did think that unless America was willing to project its power in strategic areas of the world, such as Europe and the Middle East, and confront Soviet ambitions in those areas, the Cold War would be lost with dire consequences for Americans.
Kissinger thought the Cold War would make strange bedfellows--reactionary kings, military dictators and strongman-types whose personal vanity outweighed any concern for the future of their people.
Kissinger was a supreme realist. He did not seek the make the world a better place, only a safer one for his adopted country and its friends.
His hero was Metternich, of Congress of Vienna and Balance of Power fame. There was no room for sentimentality, and not much room for public opinion, in his world view. Wars and rumors of wars were not only expected, but exploited by Kissinger, which his critics viewed as coldly cynical, immoral and in some cases (Vietnam, Chile) indifferent to human lives.
Kissinger owed his power, at the height of his career, to Richard M. Nixon, whose feelings toward Jews were mixed at best, bigoted at worst.
Oddly, his Jewish background was an asset in dealing with Arab rulers. They figured that American Jews dictated U.S. policy in the Mideast anyhow, so Kissinger essentially cut out the middle man.
The only weakness of the book is its brevity (less than 300 pages) which doesn't leave much room for analysis of complicated issues. Nuclear weapons negotiations are barely mentioned. None the less, an excellent introduction to a complex man who left a large imprint on America's place in the world.

Jeremi Suri presents Henry Kissinger in a very unique way, unfamiliar to traditional biographies. His writing and analytic abilities set this book far ahead of any others. Sure, you may read an eight hundred epic on every little think Kissinger did. In "Henry Kissinger and the American Century" the author provides a concise analysis of Kissinger's life and its implications on his later decisions which have gathered such controversy and his impact upon history as a whole.
A fantastic, well written, unique take on Henry Kissinger - a man who is, without a doubt, one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century.
Five Stars - I can't think of a bad thing about it.