Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman by Greg Grandin is a look at a man who was instrumental in American foreign policy and has outlived critics and supporters. Grandin is the author of Fordlandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award... ...more
As Greg Grandin makes clear from the beginning, unlike Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger this book is not an indictment for war crimes. By no means does Grandin offer an apologist's perspective for this former Secretary of State and Director of the National Security Council, dire... ...more
Henry Kissinger (now age 92) has been a prominent international figure since I was in high school when he became Nixon's National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State. He seemed to me to be an urbane realist then and an elder statesman now. By looking deeply at Kissinger's early writings... ...more
Grandin provides a look at the reach of former Secretary of State Kissinger that sometime reaches in its conclusion. All of the details are significantly noted with abundant and rather long footnotes, but sometimes the sum of all the parts do not mesh up.
Great book, though it seems a single point is repeatedly driven through the entire book, maybe in an attempt to consolidate it in the reader's mind. ...more
Grandin's biographical account of Kissinger's insidious influence over US foreign policy from the Vietnam war right up to the present day War on Terror is a fascinating, timely and eminently readable book; and I would strongly recommend it to any students of contemporary history, as it is an indi... ...more
At first, I thought Greg Grandin placed too much emphasis on Henry Kissinger's philosophical training in college. The book makes a convincing case for Kissinger's fascination with metaphysics, so that by the final chapter the use of intellectual history to understand Kissinger seems warranted. In... ...more
American foreign policy may have many sins, but the most insidious and hard to stamp out is the cult of action: an overriding belief that we must "do something" about everything—usually a "kinetic" solution that involves bombs, bullets, or both. Kissinger's misdeeds are well-catalogued by this po... ...more
It would have surprised me to think that I would read a political biography of Henry Kissinger, let alone devour it in 3 subsequent evening sittings. This is an exceptional book. Grandin’s work is deeply-researched and his prose is fast-moving, giving us the impression that we are being presented... ...more