Jeremi Suri is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (Harvard).
The resulting book, refreshingly short compared with the thousands
of pages devoted to the man--most of which he has written
himself--is both unusual and fascinating...Suri is not interested
in whom Kissinger met with as national security advisor (from 1969
to 1973) or secretary of state (1973 to 1977), when he met them or
even the minute details of what was discussed. In fact, he spends
few pages on Kissinger's actual time in office. What he wants to
get to the bottom of is why Kissinger is Kissinger, or, as he puts
it, "I focus not on what Kissinger did, but on why he did it." Suri
also tries to put the man in context, explain how the demands of
the Cold War world facilitated the rise of such an outsider to
American power...Given how hard Kissinger has tried to obscure his
origins and make himself and his ideas seem exceptional, it's a
little jarring to realize how much he is simply the result of
historical circumstances that shaped not only him but millions of
others of his generation, as well...One can probably do no better
than Suri's portrait of Kissinger's mind.--Gal Beckerman"Forward"
(07/25/2007)
[Suri] argues that Kissinger was the first true global
diplomat...This is a thoughtful and readable biography of a hugely
influential statesman.--Bruce Elder"Sydney Morning Herald"
(06/13/2009)
[Suri] has written a quite different, bracingly original book about
history's impact on Kissinger. Using extensive archival research
and interviews with Kissinger, Suri shows us for the first time how
Europe's nadir in the 1930s forged a mind that would define the
course of American foreign policy...Adeptly executed, Suri's
portrait of the statesman as a young man enlivens the stale fare of
academic Kissingerology. This is a book that should be read not
only by historians but also by general readers with an interest in
international affairs...Suri has offered a disarming character
statement, a testimony that will oblige readers to comprehend the
stateman's complicity in terms of the tropubles that history has
rested upon him. In itself, that is an important
accomplishment.--Daniel Sargent"Times Higher Education Supplement"
(06/05/2008)
A useful, idiosyncratic study...Suri's Kissinger is an academic
rumination on the cerebral Harvard professor-turned-showboating
national security adviser that, while intentionally narrow in
scope, is bold in its reach.--David Greenberg"Washington Post Book
World" (07/29/2007)
An interpretation of his life that stands out among recent books on
the subject for the extent and the depth of the author's research.
Unlike Hitchens (to say nothing of Robert Dallek and Margaret
Macmillan, two other writers who have recently published books
critical of Kissinger), Suri has done some real digging before
rushing into print...This is surely the best book yet published
about Henry Kissinger...Unlike so many previous
writers--particularly those journalists steeped in the blood of the
Nixon administration--Suri actually makes an attempt to understand
his subject in the appropriate historical context rather than
simply joining in the never-ending hunt for "smoking gun"
quotations.--Niall Ferguson"Times Literary Supplement"
(05/30/2008)
Henry Kissinger is arguably the most intriguing and countercultural
global political figure of the 20th century...Suri's contribution
to Kissinger scholarship is in the precision with which he
delineates the influences that shaped Kissinger's world view.
Focusing on the concept of "Bildung", or inner cultivation that
allows the individual to progress toward enlightenment, Suri
outlines how Kissinger's intellectual development was informed by
his appreciation of such transcendent leaders as Klemens von
Metternich, Otto von Bismarck and Winston Churchill.--Harold
Heft"Montreal Gazette" (07/21/2007)
Nobody will ever accuse Jeremi Suri of lacking style or insight.
His study of Henry Kissinger's personality and place in history
offers piercing originality--so much so that laying down Dallek for
Suri feels rather like that moment in "The Prince and the Showgirl"
when Laurence Olivier, after telling all and sundry that they have
too little love in their life, meets his ex-mistress...and realizes
that she has too much.--David Frum"National Review"
(08/27/2007)
Offer[s] some fresh glimpses of [Kissinger's] motives and
personality on display in high office.--G. John Ikenberry"Foreign
Affairs" (09/01/2007)
The archival research is extensive and the analysis
thought-provoking. Although there are numerous studies of
Kissinger, as well as his own memoirs, Suri's is the best at
studying the man in terms of the social surroundings that
influenced him.--Marcia L. Sprules"Library Journal"
(04/15/2007)
This is a readable and provocative book that successfully explores
the formation of its subject's worldview and rise to power. Suri is
at his best when demonstrating the roots of Kissinger's distrust of
mass democratic politics, his obsession with strong leaders, his
emphasis on the limits of American power and his disdain for the
"insular self-righteousness" and "utopianism" of reformers
"advocating a vision of global democracy.."..[A] timely book.--Eric
Arnesen"Chicago Tribune" (08/04/2007)
This provocative, evenhanded study examines how Henry Kissinger's
background--particularly youthful memories of the failure of German
democracy to respond to Nazism--influenced his diplomacy.--A. J.
Dunar"Choice" (04/01/2008)
Drawing on research worldwide in addition to extensive interviews
with Kissinger and others, Suri analyzes the sources of Kissinger's
ideas and power and explains why he pursued the policies he
did.
Suri endeavors to explore the philosophical roots of Henry
Kissinger's actions as national security adviser and secretary of
state under President Nixon, finding those roots in a Jewish boy's
experiences of a weak Weimar regime's fall to genocidal Nazism. At
the end of the day, in Suri's account, Kissinger's philosophy
boiled down to the need to back democracy with muscle...Kissinger
did not support the brutality of the "regimes he supported in
Chile, South Africa, and other parts of the Third World," Suri
writes. But, the author acknowledges, he did "nurture personal
relations with their leaders as strongmen who could mobilize force
effectively against threats to themselves and the United States."
At the close of that statement, Suri stumbles into the unpleasant
truth of Kissinger's realpolitik.
Probing thoughtfully into Kissinger's background and character,
Suri sees the secretary as the Cold War's ultimate statesman.
Eschewing polemics...this work explores what shaped and nurtured
the phenomenon that was Henry Kissinger.
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