Henry Kissinger and the American Century

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.

I was quite excited about reading this book, which promised to be interesting from a historical and sociological perspective. However, I find the information to be poorly organized, written in apparent haste. There is a flagrant lack of concision, with many ideas being repeated over and over again.For example, on page 81 Suri writes, "[Adenauer] was the strong father (or grandfather) figure destined to guide the German people..." and then on page 83, "...made [Adenauer] an ideal candidate for Americans seeking a 'great man' to lead postwar Germany" and then on page 84, "he and other observers came to [Adenauer] as an indispensable 'great man' in the creation of a new Germany..." and then on page 85, "As the father of the postwar Federal Republic of Germany... Adenauer..." and just one paragraph later, "Adenauer was, in many ways, the German father figure Kissinger and other occupation officials searched for."All this repetition makes the book terribly boring to read, since we have the same ideas drummed into our heads for pages and pages, with very little new information. Also, I find much of the information included here inconsequential. There are practically no surprising anecdotes or quotes. Since Kissinger is still alive and the author interviewed him, you might expect to find some interesting quotes, but no. Suri goes to the trouble of citing such uninformative responses from Kissinger as "I am not prepared to share that yet" but not much else.Overall I'm very disappointed and I cannot recommend this book.Also, there is also a brief mention of Arnold Schoenberg, which in addition to being completely out of place, is misleading since Suri suggests that this composer developed new rhythmical structures. Schoenberg broke with tonal traditions, but he did not contribute any novelty in rhythmical structures.

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!