Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman

by Greg Grandin Narrated by Brian O'Neill

Overview

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. 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 polarization 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 militarized version of American exceptionalism centered 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.

Going beyond accounts focusing on either Kissinger's crimes or accomplishments, Grandin offers a compelling new interpretation of the diplomat's continuing influence on how the United States views its role in the world.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 06/08/2015
Assessing Henry Kissinger’s impact on American foreign policy, Grandin (The Empire of Necessity) returns to the source of the man’s political thought: his Harvard undergraduate thesis, “The Meaning of History.” Within Kissinger’s earliest writing Grandin finds the basis for his “imperial existentialism,” a Spenglerian realpolitik that endorses action in order to resist decline and assert a nation’s purpose. Beholden to no moral or ethical code and armed with a tragic sense of human history, Kissinger left academia to formulate a doctrine that prioritized instinct and will over empirical data and causality. Though his tactics proved ill-suited to winning either wars or allies, they did prove effective in winning elections, cementing Kissinger’s position within the national security state. Grandin is unsparing in his criticism of Kissinger and his theories, but his aims go beyond polemic and towards resolving the contradiction of Kissinger’s two legacies: one as the man who opened China, improved relations with the Soviets, and ended the 1973 Arab-Israeli War through shrewd shuttle diplomacy; the other as the architect of the illegal bombing campaigns in Cambodia, the invasion of Laos, and a series of destabilizing coups and assassinations. Reaganites criticized Kissinger, yet benefited from the national security state he formed. Grandin pinpoints that legitimization of interventionism as Kissinger’s true bipartisan contribution to American politics. Ever the marvelous thinker, Grandin will have even the most ardent Kissinger foe enthralled. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

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

author of Blood and Soil: A World History of G Ben Kiernan

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.

author of Washington Rules: America’s Pa Andrew J. Bacevich

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.

Library Journal

09/01/2015
No foreign policy official has had more influence than Henry Kissinger (b. 1923), claims Grandin (history, New York Univ.; The Empire of Necessity) in this indictment of both Kissinger's diplomacy as national security advisor to Richard Nixon and later secretary of state to both Nixon and Gerald Ford as well as his advocacy of George W. Bush's regime-change politics during the Iraq War. The author's bleak assessment, which relies heavily on primary resources including newly declassified records, describes "Kissingerism" as a doctrine based on the imperial presidency and American exceptionalism stating that gut feelings are more important than historical facts, and what is good for Kissinger is good for the world. Kissinger's heavy and hidden-handed abuses are shown in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Southern Africa, and Latin America. "Kissingerism," concludes Grandin, has become ingrained in U.S. foreign policy and is practiced by both parties. VERDICT Grandin will win no friends among Kissinger supporters, yet this book will find its audience among political scientists, historians, and informed readers attempting to assess the statesman's complex legacy. Alistair Horne's Kissinger and Jeremi Suri's Henry Kissinger and the American Century offer more favorable views of Kissinger, the diplomat.—Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

Kirkus Reviews

2015-05-06
A focused examination of Henry Kissinger's foreign policy as the normalization of "secrecy and spectacle," from Southeast Asia to Chile to Iran to Iraq. Grandin (History/New York Univ.; The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom and Deception in the New World, 2014, etc.) takes on what he considers the pernicious foreign policy legacy of Kissinger and his validation of the idea of perpetual need to "fight little wars in grey areas with resolve." Unlike the "righteous indignation" of Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001) or Seymour Hersh's incomplete The Price of Power (1983), Grandin takes in the full sweep of American foreign policy under Kissinger's "shadow" through the present-day quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have featured the same imperial arrogance that drove Kissinger's highly secret Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia policy under President Richard Nixon. The hallmarks of Kissinger's style, as formulated as early as his 1954 Harvard doctoral thesis, were ethical relativism, a championing of man's freedom over cause and effect and a rejection of the Cold War policy of containment. Kissinger's "alarmism" proved "a good career move," as Grandin demonstrates in his chronicle of Kissinger's early advising of Nelson Rockefeller and his leaking of information on the September 1968 Paris peace talks between Washington and Hanoi to the Nixon campaign camp (to keep Democratic rival Hubert Humphrey from gaining the upper hand), which allowed Kissinger into the inner circle of Nixon, who "anointed" him national security adviser. Creating Operation Menu, the ultrasecret bombing campaign of Cambodia (a sovereign, neutral country), followed by a ground invasion, created a siege mentality within government in the face of civil opposition and ferocious adherence to action at all cost. Grandin knowledgeably depicts how "Nixon's tool" similarly polarized governments in Pakistan, Angola, Iran, Chile, and elsewhere. A trenchant and succinct depiction of the ongoing artful dodging of the nonagenarian statesman.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170731435
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	08/25/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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