Kissinger: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: Henry Kissinger is a mass murderer
Review: As Walter Isaacson will tell you, Kissinger is the sort of man who will draw polar reactions from people-- you either love him or hate him. This makes it difficult to write an objective biography of him while still providing useful commentary. Isaacson succeeds brilliantly. Although he is very penetrating in analyzing Kissinger's techniques and views as National Security Advisor and later as Secretary of State, he stops short of giving us his views on whether they were good and bad, focusing instead on whether or not they worked, and what reaction they provoked. This leaves the reader to form their own opinion on whether or not Kissinger was justified in his actions, or if his policies were the best ones. This is as it should be-- Kissinger is too complex a subject and too emotional a topic to be fed someone else's reaction to his actions. Isaacson points out the successes of Kissinger's noted duplicity and his pragmatic, sometimes ruthless, worldview, as well as the negative reactions it often drew, but leaves the reader to decide their own opinion. What Isaacson does is provides an excellent insight into Kissinger's complex personality, as well as an analysis of his foreign policy, the effects of his personality on his policy, and the options available to him. I have never seen a better guide to Kissinger and his policies.

Rating:
Summary: An uncompromising look at an important statesman
Review: As Walter Isaacson will tell you, Kissinger is the sort of man who will draw polar reactions from people-- you either love him or hate him. This makes it difficult to write an objective biography of him while still providing useful commentary. Isaacson succeeds brilliantly. Although he is very penetrating in analyzing Kissinger's techniques and views as National Security Advisor and later as Secretary of State, he stops short of giving us his views on whether they were good and bad, focusing instead on whether or not they worked, and what reaction they provoked. This leaves the reader to form their own opinion on whether or not Kissinger was justified in his actions, or if his policies were the best ones. This is as it should be-- Kissinger is too complex a subject and too emotional a topic to be fed someone else's reaction to his actions. Isaacson points out the successes of Kissinger's noted duplicity and his pragmatic, sometimes ruthless, worldview, as well as the negative reactions it often drew, but leaves the reader to decide their own opinion. What Isaacson does is provides an excellent insight into Kissinger's complex personality, as well as an analysis of his foreign policy, the effects of his personality on his policy, and the options available to him. I have never seen a better guide to Kissinger and his policies.

Rating:
Summary: An Intensely Interesting Biography
Review: Biographies of complex, contemplative people tend to have a problem: the author of the biography isn't nearly as contemplative as the subject. And, the author is frequently an expert in a different space. I think that this biography suffers from the same problem with respect to evaluating Kissinger's positions in certain cases. This is especially tricky in making an "unbiased" biography. Given the span of opinions about Kissinger, the main question is: was he a bad guy or not? And, if so, how bad? Here, it seems, that the author has failed to understand Kissinger's self-defense (as made in his memoirs). The upshot of this is that some of the psychological evaluations that any biographer must attempt seem quite at odds with the nature of the complexity that seems apparent in other sources on the man. All things considered though, this is an excellent work that shows how to relate different parts of a very complex and important figure.

Rating:
Summary: Christ or Anti-Christ
Review: I am not an expert in political science or in American History. I am just a lay person who enjoys reading biographies and other non-fiction. I am also too young to remember Kissinger. This book opened my eyes to what a controversial and influential character Henry Kissinger was. Isaacson presents Kissinger in an unbiased manner, which helped me realize the incredible complexity to his personality and his achievements. The book was obviously thoroughly researched through interviews and documents. It was also readable, an important feature for a casual reader. I was speaking about it for weeks, and it definitely impacted my understanding of world politics.

Rating:
Summary: Fine when history speaks, less so when Isaacson does
Review: I applaud the length of work that Isaacson has gone to as a reporter. Issacson is a good journalist, but he writes lousy editorials. He has done a masterful job in displaying Kissinger's early academic work and showing how Kissinger's thoughts progressed over his lifetime and how they remained consistent. Also as a biography, this book goes into extremely candid detail about Kissinger's personal life. That makes this a very good book; it would also make it less that half of its present length if you could cut out all of Isaacson's tangent analysis that cheapens the book with his emotional logic and pejorative commentary. It makes the book far too long and frankly annoying to read.

Rating:
Summary: An Intensely Interesting Biography
Review: I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book so much. Every time I put it down, I found myself thinking of when I would have time to pick it up and continue reading it. Mr. Isaacson has really grasped his subject matter and written a balanced book. It does not seek to praise or castigate Kissinger. His goal seems to be to present him as objectively as possible, yet not without assessment.

The overarching question that came to me again and again as I read this book concerned integrity. I kept wondering how anyone could believe anything that comes out of Kissinger's mouth. To say he is disingenuous seems to be an understatement. Isaacson brings out the fact that Kissinger would flatter a person and then insult him behind his back. Quite often this would come back to haunt Kissinger.

Isaacson does a masterful job in articulating the "realist" school of foreign policy and the "idealist" school. The realist view sees things in terms of balances of power, whereas the idealist school sees things in terms of promoting American values in foreign policy (like democracy, human rights, etc.). Kissinger, holding to the former school, had no feel for the latter whatsoever. This left his foreign policy open, and I believe rightly so, to criticism from human rights groups and from average Americans who felt we should put our best values forward in conducting foreign affairs.

Isaacson makes the point that Kissinger waited five years until he started his international consulting business. He has literally made millions as a consultant. He was also on the boards of major corporations. While there is nothing unethical in serving in those capacities, he was, at the same time, a paid commentator on foreign affairs for major networks. Just as a judge is bound to excuse himself in a case where he has conflicting interests, it seems to me that Kissinger should have done the same when it came to offering his views about foreign policy concerns. I think it reprehensible that journalists rarely, if ever, brought up his possible conflict of interests. Evidently his flattery routine worked quite well on journalists also. Over the years, I have never read or heard any meaningful criticism of Communist China from Kissinger. Quite the contrary, he seems to be their greatest apologist! Is this because of his realist view of foreign policy? Is it because he has business interests in China? I guess we will never know. So I take what he says with a grain of salt.

Which takes me back to the overarching question of how anyone can believe anything he says. Isaacson's book can't answer that question, but it makes the asking of it necessary.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and shallow
Review: Isaacson operates on the level of a "gotcha" analysis and revels in endlessly reporting Kissinger's little idiosyncrasies, his daily turf battles and therefore never comes close to touching upon how Kissinger succeeded. Isaacson fails to do this because he is more concerned with attacking Kissinger's character than with explaining how Kissinger's theories and practices made him--which Isaacson occasionally admits--a great player on the world stage. For the student of history and philosophy, which are the disciplines Kissinger himself tells us are indispensible for the statesman, the fact that a statesman is not totally forthcoming or honest in the way that an everyday common man thinks of the terms is far from surprising, and certainly not desirable--not if you want the statesman to be effective, especially in a republic. Socrates and his pupil Plato were proponents of the noble or salutary lie. "How, then, might we contrive one of the opportune falsehoods of which we were just now speaking, so as by one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city?" (_Republic_ 414b-c) This may not be what the uninitiated like to hear but it is reality. Appeals to universal "rights" do not change tens of thousands of years of human evolution. The "divine right" of kings legislated in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe has its source in the same place as the "natural rights" of man: the metaphysical hinterwelt, alternately used to legitimize political power. Whence the noble lie of our great philosophers. "It is not for nothing that you were so bashful about coming out with your lie." (_Republic_ 414e)

Isaacson constantly tells us what he believes are Kissinger's shortcomings and occassionaly admits that Kissinger was a diplomatic genius and often quite successful at achieving his ends. There is virtually nothing in the way of actual analysis--geopolitical, or, as the more humane like to preach, moral (and there certainly are both geopolitical and moral arguments to be made on Kissinger's behalf)--of how Kissinger's manoeuvers gave the United States the upper hand with the Soviets, pushing them back in Asia and, especially, the Middle East, basically laying the groundwork for the demise of the Soviet Union within a generation. (The Russians are still trying to get back in the Middle East. Kissinger is responsible for them not being there.) This, you can be sure, was not achieved by appealing to Brezhnev's innate sense of morality and justice. Is it not necessary, as Mao Zedong, speaking of the Soviet Union, told Kissinger in one of their meetings, to use means that one would not otherwise employ when dealing with a ruthless bastard?

Doubtless Isaacson approaches Kissinger from the very perspective that Kissinger openly admits he disdains, that of moralizing Wilsonianism--a moralizing that lacks the courage of its convictions you might say. Of course Isaacson does not come out and tell us this; he just assumes the reader shares his populist view (after all, being in the majority makes one "objective") and will agree with him that Kissinger must have been a bad guy because he admired the political skills of Bismark and Richelieu. In fact, Isaacson is fascinated with what he tacitly describes as the nefarious German connection between Kissinger and Bismark and appears ignorant of the fact that Bismark was one of the greatest foreign policy minds of Modern Western politics. That is the side of the Kissinger story Isaacson does not tell us. Mere allusions to Kissinger's successes do not explain them. The result is an 800 page magazine article in the form of a book that never touches the genius of its subject because of the author's inability to move beyond the level of analysis you find in pop news magazines.

Rating:
Summary: A Decent Biography
Review: Walter Isaacson simply set out to chronicle and highlight to the life and times of Henry Kissinger. What resulted was one of the most comprehensive, insightful, and nonpartisan biographies of the field. Isaacson draws extensively from Kissinger's own memoirs, Years of Upheaval, White House Years, and Years of Renewal, as well as other works written by Kissinger. However, Isaacson also uses other secondary sources written by authors sympathetic and unsympathetic to the former Secretary of State. Yet Isaacson doesn't narrow his focus to any particular period of time in Kissinger's life or career. He details Kissinger's experiences as a university student at Harvard, as a professor there, then as a prominent government figure, then into a full blown public position as National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State. Isaacson does not shy away from controversial topics in or facets of Kissinger's life. He mentions Kissinger's standing as a jet-setter, courting the heads of state and traveling the world, solving, or working to solve, major world problems such as the Vietnam war, the Yom Kippur War, problems with the Soviet Union, and many more. Part of what makes Isaacson's biography a work of quality is his attention to the lesser known events in which Kissinger was a major player. It is up to the reader to judge whether or not Kissinger is biased, manipulative, or any of the other range of qualities, positive or negative, on which Isaacson sheds light. Isaacson, although judgmental at times, simply provides enough material or direction for any reader to make such a choice. It is more than likely that Kissinger is a polarizing figure of such magnitude that any author or biographer simply cannot resist the temptation to judge. Isaacson's work remains, in spite of any judging, a must-have resource for any reader set on inquiring into Kissinger's life and career. It is a very thorough introductory survey of Kissinger despite any shortcomings.