“For this reason, I can predict with certainty that hostile reviewers will allege that I have in some way been influenced or induced to paint a falsely flattering picture.’’
So true.
“My sole commitment was to make my “best efforts to record [his] life ‘as it actually was’ on the basis of an informed study of the documentary and other evidence available.”
“This commitment was part of a legal agreement, which ended with the following clause . . .
“While the authority of the Work will be enhanced by the extent of the Grantor’s [i.e., Kissinger’s] assistance . . . it will be enhanced still more by the fact of the Author’s independence; thus, it is understood and agreed that . . . the Author shall have full editorial control over the final manuscript of the Work, and the Grantor shall have no right to vet, edit, amend or prevent the publication of the finished manuscript of the Work.’’
And (I think) Ferguson reached that goal. No biographer can deeply see into a life and be blinded by hostile prejudice; on the other-hand, preconceived assumptions can warp his vision. The right balance requires genuine skill.
Most of this extensive work (864 pages) is historical narrative. Ferguson is writing, in reality, two biographies. One, biography of a famous public intellectual; and two, the biography of twentieth century politics. In fact, seems to spend more pages on cultural, political, academic, military context — than Kissinger’s story.
Great! (If you want that much detail)
Students of political science, scholars looking for comprehensive references, curious readers looking for ‘inside story’, etc., etc., will all be satisfied. For general reader wanting overview . . .
Nevertheless, Ferguson includes analysis, opinion, conclusions and insights. For example, in epilogue . . .
“It was an education in five stages . . .
The first was Kissinger’s youthful experience of German tyranny, American democracy, and world war.
The second was his discovery of philosophical idealism and then historical knowledge at Harvard, and his first application in “Boswash” of these academic insights in the new field of nuclear strategy.
The third stage was the harsh lesson in political reality he received in Washington, D.C., during the giddy, risky years of the Kennedy administration.
Then came the exposure, from the ground up, to the new kind of warfare that was being waged in Vietnam.
Finally, in Paris, Kissinger learned what it was to be diplomatically hoodwinked.’’
This provides outstanding summary. Then . . .
“At all but the last stage of his educational progress, there was a mentor: first, Fritz Kraemer, the monocled Mephistopheles in olive-green fatigues; then William Elliott, Dixie’s Oxonian idealist; then McGeorge Bundy, the WASP in the White House; then Nelson Rockefeller, a would-be Medici to Kissinger’s anti-Machiavelli, as naïve in his pursuit of power as Kissinger was idealistic in his counsel.’’
As shown above, Ferguson’s deft sketch of many famous people adds color and interest. Many, many more — Kennedys, Johnson, Haig, Adenauer, MacGeorge Bundy, de Gaulle, Dulles, Rostow, Eisenhower, W. Y. Elliott, Ho Chi Minh, Kennan, Khrushchev, H. C. Lodge, McNamara, Nixon, etc., etc., — these are just the ones with numerous references!
Some real . . . real . . . revelations . . .
CHAPTER 1 Heimat
CHAPTER 2 Escape
CHAPTER 3 Fürth on the Hudson
CHAPTER 4 An Unexpected Private
CHAPTER 5 The Living and the Dead
CHAPTER 6 In the Ruins of the Reich
CHAPTER 7 The Idealist
CHAPTER 8 Psychological Warfare
CHAPTER 9 Doctor Kissinger
CHAPTER 10 Strangelove?
CHAPTER 11 Boswash
CHAPTER 12 The Intellectual and the Policy Maker
CHAPTER 13 Flexible Responses
CHAPTER 14 Facts of Life
CHAPTER 15 Crisis
CHAPTER 16 The Road to Vietnam
CHAPTER 17 The Unquiet American
CHAPTER 18 Dirt Against the Wind
CHAPTER 19 The Anti-Bismarck
CHAPTER 20 Waiting for Hanoi
CHAPTER 21 1968
CHAPTER 22 The Unlikely Combination
EPILOGUE: A Bildungsroman
What surprised (astounded) me the most was Kissinger’s doctoral thesis . . .
“The Meaning of History” has gone down in history—as the longest-ever thesis written by a Harvard senior and the origin of the current limit on length (35,000 words, or around 140 pages, still known to some as “the Kissinger rule”). The thesis was 388 pages long—and this was after chapters on Hegel and Schweitzer had been cut. But its size was not the most remarkable thing about it.’’
Really?
“In a dazzling distillation of three years’ worth of reading, Kissinger gives us not just Spengler, Toynbee, and Kant but also Collingwood, Dante, Darwin, Descartes, Dostoevsky, Goethe, Hegel, Hobbes, Holmes, Homer, Hume, Locke, Milton, Plato, Sartre, Schweitzer, Spinoza, Tolstoy, Vico, Virgil, and Whitehead—as well as Bradley, Huntington, Joseph, Poincaré, Reichenbach, Royce, Russell, Sheffer, Stebbing, and Veblen in the appendix on the logic of meaning.’’
Wow! Professional philosophers would be proud to complete this . . . this . . . overwhelming dive into the depths . . . For a political science student? What does Kissinger conclude?
“The experience of freedom in a determined environment is [thus] seen to be potentially meaningful after all. . . . Purposiveness is not revealed by phenomenal reality but constitutes the resolve of a soul. Freedom does have a place in a determined universe.”
This decision against determinism and for freedom is rare. How did he defend this?
“Where does Kissinger himself stand in the end? The answer is with freedom over necessity, with choice understood as an inward experience . . .
“Freedom,” he writes in a key passage, “is not a definitional quality, but an inner experience of life as a process of deciding meaningful alternatives. This . . . does not mean unlimited choice. Everybody is a product of an age, a nation, and environment. But, beyond that, he constitutes what is essentially unapproachable by analysis . . . the creative essence of history, the moral personality. However we may explain actions in retrospect, their accomplishment occurred with the inner conviction of choice. . . . Man can find the sanction for his actions only within himself.’’
Well . . . no one can claim Kissinger was superficial . . .
A lot of stuff in Ferguson’s book. Reader can skip a lot (I did) and still find much to absorb.
Sixty seven photographs
Extensive index (linked)
Thousands of notes (linked)
Five hundred sources (not linked)
Tremendous research!
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Frequently bought together
$27.00
Get it as soon as Tuesday, Jun 11
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
+
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Reviews with images
Top reviews from other countries
KonMax
Interessante, gute und detailliert geschriebene Biographie von Henry Kissinger.
Reviewed in Germany on June 17, 2023
jorge miguel freitas espinha
Valuable to understand the man and the time period.
Reviewed in Spain on March 26, 2018Irving Scott
From war to peace in a half Cantury of one man's life.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 7, 2017
