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.
