Ferguson Niall: Kissinger 1923.-1968.: Idealist

Niall Ferguson: Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist

No American statesman has been so admired and so reviled as Henry Kissinger. Some have raised him to stardom as the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, but he has also acquired fiercely hostile critics who have branded him an amoral Machiavellian—an utterly cold-blooded "realist".

In this remarkable new book, the first of two volumes, Niall Ferguson has created a particularly valuable panorama of Kissinger's world, as well as re-examining the paradigm around it. a man. Only by knowing Kissinger's childhood and youth (as a Jew in Hitler's Germany, a poor immigrant in New York, a soldier in the Battle of the Bulge, a Nazi eavesdropper and a history student at Harvard) can we understand his debt to the philosophy of idealism. And only by following his rise, fall and return as an adviser to Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller and, finally, Richard Nixon can we fully understand the magnitude of his contribution to the theory of diplomacy, grand strategy and nuclear deterrence.

With sources from Kissinger's previously unavailable private documents, but also documents from more than a hundred archives from around the world, this biography is Ferguson's masterpiece. Like his classic, two-volume history of the House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds a dazzling new light on an entire era.

About the author:

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's best-known historians. He is a professor of history at the Laurence A. Tisch Chair at Harvard University, a senior research associate at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization and The Great Degeneration. He also wrote and filmed six highly successful television series for the UK's Channel 4: Empire, American Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, Civilization and China: Triumph and Turmoil. In 2009, the series The Ascent of Money received the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary Film. Kissinger, a feature film based on his interviews with Henry Kissinger, won Best Documentary at the 2011 New York Film Festival.

His numerous other awards include the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award (2012), and the Ludwig Erhard Award for Economic Journalism (2013).

"The most celebrated British historian of his generation." - The Times

"Niall Ferguson has transformed the intellectual landscape." – Economist

"A gifted polemicist. He brings a wealth of historical knowledge into connection with tricky, important questions." - Independent