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    Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman
    Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman
    Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman
    Audiobook7 hours

    Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman

    Written by Greg Grandin

    Narrated by Brian O'Neill

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    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 In his fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin argues that to understand the crisis of contemporary America-its never-ending wars abroad and political polarization at home-we have to understand Henry Kissinger. Examining Kissinger's own writings, as well as a wealth of newly declassified documents, Grandin reveals how Richard Nixon's top foreign policy advisor, even as he was presiding over defeat in Vietnam and a disastrous, secret, and illegal war in Cambodia, was helping to revive a militarized version of American exceptionalism centered on an imperial presidency. Believing that reality could be bent to his will, insisting that intuition is more important in determining policy than hard facts, and vowing that past mistakes should never hinder future bold action, Kissinger anticipated, even enabled, the ascendance of the neoconservative idealists who took America into crippling wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 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. Greg Grandin is the author of The Empire of Necessity; Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; as well as Empire's Workshop and The Blood of Guatemala. A professor of history at New York University and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Public Library, Grandin has served on the UN Truth Commission investigating the Guatemalan Civil War and has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and The New York Times.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateAug 25, 2015
    ISBN9781490691831
    Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman
    Author

    Greg Grandin

    Greg Grandin is the author of The End of the Myth, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and Fordlandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His widely acclaimed books also include The Last Colonial Massacre, Kissinger's Shadow, and The Empire of Necessity, which won the Bancroft and Beveridge awards in American history. He is Peter V. and C. Van Woodward Professor of History at Yale University.

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    Reviews for Kissinger's Shadow

    3.5/5

    37 ratings9 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Greg Grandin's "Kissinger's Shadow" attempts to explore the reality of Kissinger - and in Grandin's mind, the reality is that everything Kissinger did was a mistake. You don't get balance in this book - you get polemic.

      Kissinger was never the most corrupt Secretary of State we've ever had (remember, Hillary Clinton had the job, too), and he wasn't the purehearted shining light either. The reality, as it always is, was much more difficult, but that idea would only get in the way of Grandin's agenda. Criminal? Check. Cryptonazi? Check. Boogeyman? Check.

      Kissinger presided - or helped preside, to be more accurate - over the Vietnam War, yes, but he also opened China - how can you possibly ignore 1 billion people, as U.S. foreign policy did?

      Like him or not (and Grandin obviously doesn't), Kissinger is the most consequential man in American foreign policy in the last 50 years.

      I received this book as a free review copy.

      More reviews at my WordPress site, Ralphsbooks.
    • 4/5
      An interesting history of philosopher-imperialist Henry Kissinger and his disturbing legacy on American foreign policy today. Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the history or origins of the current US empire.
    • 4/5
      I have read several of Grandin's books. I am always a fan of history that does not attempt to gloss over the blowback that is caused by the actions of our nation in foreign countries. Grandin is an expert at exposing such actions. In this book Grandin shows how America's foreign policy became one that is totally detached from the reality of the countries that we intend to influence. According to Grandin this began with Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was not interested in reality and facts--he had his own reality. Kissinger did not see that world as it was, but rather viewed it as it should be. He saw a world in which his adopted country would lead and to accomplish this goal the end always justifies the means. Thus there is no problem with overthrowing democratically elected presidents such as in Chile, booming neutral countries such as Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Grandin does not only blame Kissinger for these crimes, but he also argues that his influence continues with such actions as the war in Iraq, which despite the lack of evidence to support the Bush administration's claims, was presented as a justifiable war.
    • 3/5
      Kissinger's Shadow by Greg GrandinThe book is a biography/indictment of Henry Kissinger. Despite being pretty left in my politics, this book came across as a bit too much of a screed for my taste. Henry Kissinger undoubtedly has a lot to answer for - whether it is his involvement in overthrowing Latin American governments or the secret bombing of Cambodia. In addition to these actions, Grandin seeks to add a long list of further indictments - Kissinger undermining the peace talks to end the Vietnam war in conjunction with the Nixon campaign or the rise of the Khmer Rouge, Grandin puts forward a well-sourced argument but one that would be more convincing had he attempted to add a veneer of balance to his account.Ultimately, Grandin's goal appears to be to lay the blame for the whole of the secretive national security structure at Kissinger's feet while tying him to the country's recent misadventures in Iraq. While I do not doubt that Kissinger played a role in most of the things that Grandin cites, I think that the level of culpability is overstated. Also, some of the events that Grandin tries to tie Kissinger to are not as clear cut as Grandin suggests. For example, Grandin argues that Kissinger sabotaged the negotiations to try to end the Vietnam war that occurred at the end of the Johnson administration. Per Grandin, Kissinger passed on secret information about the talks to the Nixon campaign which then used the information to tell various parties that they could get a "better" deal from a future Nixon administration. The peace talks collapsed as a result and Nixon narrowly defeated Humphrey. It may have happened as Grandin describes. However, there is no smoking gun to tie Kissinger to the collapse of the peace talks. Moreover, Grandin's book is designed as such a take-down that I was left wondering if Grandin had stretched his account to fit his theory. A more even-handed account in other parts of the book may well have convinced me of Kissinger's culpability in this matter.Henry Kissinger, for better or worse, is one the towering figures of American foreign policy in the last 50 years. His role in the ills and successes of American foreign policy should be closely examined and hotly debated. Unfortunately, this book came across as being more interested in stirring up controversy than it was in a serious examination of the subject. Kissinger's Shadow suffered from this one-sided focus.
    • 4/5
      How Henry Kissinger has avoided being put on trial for crimes against humanity is hard to comprehend. Responsible for the secret (unauthorized) carpet bombing of Laos and Cambodia, two neutral countries, during the late stages of the Vietnam war when such massive destruction had no possible effect on the war's outcome — those countries are still dealing with unexploded bombs and the effects of chemical warfare on its people and environment. Kissinger's philosophy of escalation as the only form of political power was displayed throughout the world — usually in support of brutal right-wing regimes that murdered and terrorized to maintain power. From Southeast Asia to Africa and the Middle East, Kissinger, often without the support or knowledge of congress, supplied weapons and covert support to the most brutal regimes in the world. Arguably the mindset that invaded Iraq and Afghanistan has continued the mindless philosophy that has been championed by Kissinger through much of the world's post-Vietnam history.In Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman, historian Greg Grandin has convincingly painted a portrait of an American statesman obsessed with power, control and the manipulation of the meaning of history to benefit, no matter the cost, his own cause.
    • 3/5
      Garding 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.
    • 2/5
      Only if you have a compulsive desire to re-argue the Vietnam War or delight in witnessing the character assassination of a person that does not fit into your idea of political correctness, will you enjoy this book. If, like me, you get riled up when pseudo historian leftists skew facts and have the audacity to cite opinions by like-minded sources as factual bases, you will not like it. They feed on their own illusions. And if you find voluminous footnotes and end notes that often ramble off in all directions and seem more likely designed to conceal sources than act as cites, you will be doubly displeased. Grandin is obsessed with the military incursion into Cambodia and Laos in 1970 and identifies it as the defining act of Kissinger’s life and the precedent for all the ensuing evils of the world. He repeatedly goes back to it throughout the book and contends that it was a criminal act and that Henry Kissinger was its architect and personally directed the operation. If it was a criminal act, then landing marines on the Barbary Coast, the Mexican War, Pershing’s pursuit of Pancho Villa in 1916 and even Abraham Lincoln’s invasion of the Commonwealth of Virginia ought to be considered criminal acts. Grandin also displays great naivety when he assumes that bombing mission planning consists of giving a pilot a new set of target coordinates and it can be done from a desk in Kissinger’s office. Targeting is far more complex and entails such things as fuel loads, munitions carried, the location and placement of search and rescue assets and other considerations. With the tactical use of nuclear weapons, the countering of insurgencies throughout the free world was a major concern and shaper of military thinking in the 1950s and 60s. Mao Tse-tung wrote the treatise on guerrilla warfare-my copy is a translation by Samuel Griffith. Mao’s book provided the guidance for Hanoi on how to conduct its insurgency in the south. An important tenet of Mao’s thinking was the importance of sanctuaries for the rest, recoupment, re-equipment, and adjustment of tactical plans. Grandin assumes that the objective of the attack on the sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia was to destroy them and he correctly states that the effort was futile. But the objective was equally aimed at the concept of sanctuaries, especially those that depended on international borders as an integral part of their defense. No leader of an insurgency including its manifestation as terrorism has successfully used national boundaries as a defensive perimeter since. Kissinger, Mao and von Clausewitz share an opinion regarding the inseparability of politics and war. Grandin obviously feels there must be a sharp division between them with politics/diplomacy conducted by genteel academics according to idealistic principles. The world does not work that way and Grandin cannot wish it into existence. He neither cites Mao or von Clausewitz or compares or contrasts their views with Kissinger’s although the parallels are apparent and glaring. Grandin also virtually ignores Machiavelli except for a passing mention near the end of the book and yet the shadow of Machiavelli as the evil genius behind a hapless ruler seems to be his model for Henry Kissinger. If Kissinger could have done everything that Grandin lays at his feet, he had as great or greater of an impact on history than Napoleon. The book might be a good op ed piece in the liberal press but it is a poor history or biography. To paraphrase what Kissinger once said, ”Other than that, I assume you liked it.” I did not.
    • 5/5
      In Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman, historian Greg Grandin examines the development of Henry Kissinger’s philosophy of statecraft during his time at Harvard, his implementation of that philosophy in the Nixon and Ford Whitehouses, and his legacy through the Obama Administration. Using Kissinger’s own words, Grandin defines Kissingerism as the belief that “we have to escalate in order to prove we aren’t impotent, and the more impotent we prove to be, the more we have to escalate” (p. 69). In this system, “great states are always either gaining or losing influence, which means that the balance of power has to be constantly tested through gesture and deed” (p. 192). Such a belief, encouraged action, discouraged inaction, and lead to a preference for intuition rather than facts.Grandin spends most of his time examining Kissinger’s role in the Nixon presidency, as this was the height of the Secretary of State’s influence. His source base includes transcripts of conversations available at the time as well as recently declassified material and recollections from new memoirs. Grandin appears the consummate Kissinger scholar, deftly interweaving conclusions from early historians and using them to bolster his argument. After demonstrating Kissingerism during the Nixon presidency, Grandin examines how it has influenced later administrations, focusing primarily on the neoconservative movement, which early on embraced Kissinger’s philosophy while rejecting Kissinger the man. Despite this rebuttal, Kissinger quickly attached himself to the neocon movement and continued to remain influential in the growing power of the imperial presidency, even during the terms of liberal presidents such as Clinton and Obama.Grandin’s thesis helps to explain the drive for the 2003 war in Iraq and offers crucial insight into every post-Cold War military excursion. Far from a simple biography of Henry Kissinger, Greg Grandin’s Kissinger’s Shadow is a radical look at the paradoxical manner in which politicians interpret history, where past actions justify present actions, which in turn justify the past actions.
    • 4/5
      Scathing account of the Kissinger years as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Some of the highlights include: Carrying out a secret bombing campaign and later invasion against neutral Cambodia. These actions led indirectly to the ascension of the Khmer Rouge and the deaths of some two million Cambodians. Publicly pursuing an end to hostilities in Vietnam while privately doing everything possible to ensure that the war went on and on, even though he knew in 1965 that the war was unwinnable. Supporting totalitarian regimes in Indonesia, the Philippines, Iran, South Central Africa, Chile, Peru, Central America, etc. These regimes were all notorious for their use of violence and torture against their own citizenry. Being involved with arms sales to Iraq and supporting the Baathist regime there - which eventually led to Saddam's ruthless attacks on the Kurds and his invasion of Kuwait, which led to two completely avoidable wars. Unfailing support for Saudi Arabia, a dubious ally, at best. Wholehearted support for Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded that country, which led naturally to another war in 2002 and at last check hasn't ended yet.Some of this could be forgiven in the name of containment of communist expansion, but all of it? The author makes a strong case that Kissinger and his ilk were merely using power because they could and achieving nothing more than unending war around the globe. The United States comes across as aggressors again and again, when perhaps a friendlier approach to oppressed people might have yielded better long-term results in terms of peace.I don't know for sure, and it will probably depend a lot on where you stand as far as the threat Communism posed in the sixties and seventies, but the world could have and should have been a better place by now, and I feel that a lot of the blame for the kind of world in which we live can be directly placed on the shoulders of Henry Kissinger.