About the Book
Kissinger’s Shadow
The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman
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.
Going beyond accounts focusing either on 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.
What People are Saying
“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
“A tour d’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
“A brilliant, original, carefully researched and wide-ranging book. It 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
“Nearly forty years after leaving government Henry Kissinger still casts an improbably vast shadow: puppet master of detente, shuttle diplomatist as canny magician, statesman as superstar. But as Greg Grandin shows in his absorbing tour de force, 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: Politics, Violence, War
“Greg Grandin’s brilliant account of Kissinger does far more than just limn the criminality of the man. He 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 in-built 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