In his fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin argues that to understand the crisis of contemporary America - its never-ending wars abroad and political polarisation at home - we have to understand Henry Kissinger.
Examining Kissinger's own writings, as well as a wealth of newly declassified documents, Grandin reveals how Richard Nixon's top foreign policy advisor, even as he was presiding over defeat in Vietnam and a disastrous, secret, and illegal war in Cambodia, was helping to revive a militarised version of American exceptionalism centred on an imperial presidency. Believing that reality could be bent to his will, insisting that intuition is more important in determining policy than hard facts, and vowing that past mistakes should never hinder future bold action, Kissinger anticipated, even enabled, the ascendance of the neoconservative idealists who took America into crippling wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In his fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin argues that to understand the crisis of contemporary America - its never-ending wars abroad and political polarisation at home - we have to understand Henry Kissinger.
Examining Kissinger's own writings, as well as a wealth of newly declassified documents, Grandin reveals how Richard Nixon's top foreign policy advisor, even as he was presiding over defeat in Vietnam and a disastrous, secret, and illegal war in Cambodia, was helping to revive a militarised version of American exceptionalism centred on an imperial presidency. Believing that reality could be bent to his will, insisting that intuition is more important in determining policy than hard facts, and vowing that past mistakes should never hinder future bold action, Kissinger anticipated, even enabled, the ascendance of the neoconservative idealists who took America into crippling wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A new account of America's most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of America's current imperial stance.
Greg Grandin is the author of The Empire of Necessity; Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; as well as Empire's Workshop and The Blood of Guatemala. A professor of history at NYU and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Public Library, Grandin has served on the UN Truth Commission investigating the Guatemalan Civil War and has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and The New York Times.
"This lucid, insightful analysis of the foreign policy legacy of
Henry Kissinger [and] the shadow he casts on the world scene today
is a must-read for politicos, students of history, and Americans of
all political persuasions."
--The Christian Science Monitor "A tour de force. Greg Grandin
exposes Kissinger's vaunted approach to statecraft as little more
than compulsive activism, typically relying on the threat or use of
force, ignorant of history, devoid of any moral or ethical
component, and discounting serious analysis in favor of intuition.
Some realism. The field of Kissinger studies begins here, with this
book."
--Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to
Permanent War "Stirring . . . With an unassailable command of the
facts -- is it possible that he's read every word ever written
about his subject? -- Grandin explains how Kissinger's more baleful
tactics have imprinted themselves on presidents and policymakers
from both parties. . . . this is the sort of book that will always
be timely, because it asks us to consider the link between today's
politics and tomorrow's unanticipated consequences."
--San Francisco Chronicle "Grandin is unsparing in his criticism of
Kissinger and his theories, but his aims go beyond polemic . . .
Ever the marvelous thinker, Grandin will have even the most ardent
Kissinger foe enthralled."
--Publisher's Weekly (starred review) "Nearly forty years after
leaving government Henry Kissinger still casts an improbably vast
shadow: puppet master of détente, shuttle diplomatist as canny
magician, statesman as superstar. But as Greg Grandin shows,
Kissinger casts a much more immediate--and malign--shadow over the
country's foreign policy, one in which acts of overwhelming
violence are deemed vital to American 'leadership' and
'credibility'. Hovering over the Iraq War, no less than over
Vietnam, is the spirit of Henry Kissinger. Grandin, with scrupulous
research and impassioned prose, lets us see it. An essential and
most timely book."
--Mark Danner, author of Stripping Bare the Body "An important book
and an unsparing portrait of Kissinger's legacy." --Minneapolis
Star-Tribune "Greg Grandin's brilliant account of Kissinger strips
Kissinger's vaunted realism to the bone, revealing a skeleton of
romantic American exceptionalism and a loving embrace of the will
to power for power's sake. Kissinger's Shadow reveals the inbuilt
denial mechanism of our all-pervasive national security state,
which will never let past catastrophe get in the way of bold action
in the future."
--Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars "Grandin's brilliant,
original, carefully researched, and wide-ranging book will change
the way we understand the United States' role in the world during
the past half century."
--Ben Kiernan, author of Blood and Soil: A World History of
Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur "Grandin takes in
the full sweep of American foreign policy under Kissinger's
"shadow" through the present-day quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan
. . . A trenchant and succinct depiction of the ongoing artful
dodging of the nonagenarian statesman"
--Kirkus Reviews "Grandin writes with literary flair and a sharp
eye for the absurdities of politics."
--The Washington Post "Niall Ferguson, Kissinger's authorized
biographer, begins the arduous task of rolling his subject's fallen
reputation back up the hill. The historian Greg Grandin kicks it
right back down again."
--Washington Monthly "Admirably lucid, even lively... Grandin,
whose previous books include a winner of the Bancroft Prize and a
finalist for both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, is an
elegant, forceful writer."
--Boston Globe
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