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Kissinger - 1923-1968: The Idealist (Paperback)
Loot Price: R481
Discovery Miles 4 810
You Save: R92
(16%)
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Kissinger - 1923-1968: The Idealist (Paperback)
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List price R573
Loot Price R481
Discovery Miles 4 810
You Save R92 (16%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square
and the Tower, the definitive biography of Henry Kissinger, based
on unprecedented access to his private papers. Winner of the
Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award No American
statesman has been as revered or as reviled as Henry Kissinger.
Once hailed as "Super K"-the "indispensable man" whose advice has
been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama-he has also
been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon"
for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson
shows in this magisterial two-volume biography, drawing not only on
Kissinger's hitherto closed private papers but also on documents
from more than a hundred archives around the world, the idea of
Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound
misunderstanding. The first half of Kissinger's life is usually
skimmed over as a quintessential tale of American ascent: the
Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany who made it to the White
House. But in this first of two volumes, Ferguson shows that what
Kissinger achieved before his appointment as Richard Nixon's
national security adviser was astonishing in its own right. Toiling
as a teenager in a New York factory, he studied indefatigably at
night. He was drafted into the U.S. infantry and saw action at the
Battle of the Bulge-as well as the liberation of a concentration
camp-but ended his army career interrogating Nazis. It was at
Harvard that Kissinger found his vocation. Having immersed himself
in the philosophy of Kant and the diplomacy of Metternich, he shot
to celebrity by arguing for "limited nuclear war." Nelson
Rockefeller hired him. Kennedy called him to Camelot. Yet
Kissinger's rise was anything but irresistible. Dogged by press
gaffes and disappointed by "Rocky," Kissinger seemed stuck-until a
trip to Vietnam changed everything. The Idealist is the story of
one of the most important strategic thinkers America has ever
produced. It is also a political Bildungsroman, explaining how "Dr.
Strangelove" ended up as consigliere to a politician he had always
abhorred. Like Ferguson's classic two-volume history of the House
of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era.
The essential account of an extraordinary life, it recasts the Cold
War world.
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