
Kissinger
1923-1968: The Idealist
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Narrated by:
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Roy McMillan
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By:
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Niall Ferguson
About this listen
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Kissinger: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson, read by Roy McMillan.
No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Hailed by some as the 'indispensable man' whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Kissinger has also attracted immense hostility from critics who have cast him as an amoral Machiavellian - the ultimate cold-blooded 'realist'.
In this remarkable new book, the first of two volumes, Niall Ferguson has created an extraordinary panorama of Kissinger's world and a paradigm-shifting reappraisal of the man. Only through knowledge of Kissinger's early life (as a Jew in Hitler's Germany, a poor immigrant in New York, a GI at the Battle of the Bulge, an interrogator of Nazis and a student of history at Harvard) can we understand his debt to the philosophy of idealism. And only by tracing his rise, fall and revival as an adviser to Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller and, finally, Richard Nixon can we appreciate the magnitude of his contribution to the theory of diplomacy, grand strategy and nuclear deterrence.
Drawing not only on Kissinger's hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than 100 archives around the world, this biography is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece. Like his classic two-volume history The House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era.
©2017 Niall Ferguson (P)2017 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.
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A mostly successful and interesting history
- By A reader on 02-24-09
By: Niall Ferguson
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The Square and the Tower
- Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Elliot Hill
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers, and field marshals. It's about states, armies, and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?
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Not his best by a long chalk: Read Steven Pinker.
- By David on 02-05-18
By: Niall Ferguson
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Kissinger: Volume I
- 1923-1968: The Idealist
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 34 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No American statesman has been as revered and 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 biography, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.
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Riveting
- By Jean on 11-10-15
By: Niall Ferguson
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High Financier
- The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking new biography, based on more than 10,000 hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, best-selling author Niall Ferguson returns to his roots as a financial historian to tell the story of Siegmund Warburg, an extraordinary man whose austere philosophy of finance offers much insight today.
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A gem, if you are interested in these topics
- By Philo on 09-22-14
By: Niall Ferguson
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Kissinger
- A Biography
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 34 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time Henry Kissinger was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become, according to a Gallup poll, the most admired person in America and one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world’s imagination. Yet Kissinger was also reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists. Kissinger explores the relationship between this complex man's personality and the foreign policy he pursued.
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A dissapointment
- By Mike From Mesa on 12-16-13
By: Walter Isaacson
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World Order
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Nicholas Hormann
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Kissinger offers in World Order a deep meditation on the roots of international harmony and global disorder. Drawing on his experience as one of the foremost statesmen of the modern era Kissinger now reveals his analysis of the ultimate challenge for the 21st century: How to build a shared international order in a world of divergent historical perspectives, violent conflict, proliferating technology, and ideological extremism.
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More retrospective than future oriented
- By Scott on 10-23-14
By: Henry Kissinger
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Leadership
- Six Studies in World Strategy
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Kissinger analyses the lives of six extraordinary leaders—Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew, and Margaret Thatcher—through the distinctive strategies of statecraft that he believes they embodied. To each of these studies, Kissinger brings historical perception, public experience and, because he knew each of the subjects and participated in many of the events he describes, personal knowledge.
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Architects of World Order
- By GrimLockz on 09-21-22
By: Henry Kissinger
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Homer and His Iliad
- By: Robin Lane Fox
- Narrated by: Steve John Shepherd
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Iliad is the world’s greatest epic poem—heroic battle and divine fate set against the Trojan War. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving, but great questions remain: Where, how, and when was it composed and why does it endure? Robin Lane Fox addresses these questions, drawing on a lifelong love and engagement with the poem. He argues for a place, a date, and a method for its composition—subjects of ongoing controversy—combining the detailed expertise of a historian with a poetic reader’s sensitivity.
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Masterful!
- By J. C. Weaver on 01-08-24
By: Robin Lane Fox
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Diplomacy
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 37 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from a sweeping overview of history to blow-by-blow accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Henry Kissinger describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America's approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other nations. Brilliant, controversial, and profoundly incisive, Diplomacy stands as the culmination of a lifetime of diplomatic service and scholarship. It is a must-listen for anyone concerned with the forces that have shaped our world today and will impact upon it tomorrow.
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Great foreign policy overview!
- By Mikhail on 02-02-20
By: Henry Kissinger
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The Secret War
- Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 30 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.
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Better read than listened to
- By B. In -t Veld on 03-25-17
By: Max Hastings
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Master of the Game
- Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy
- By: Martin Indyk
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 25 hrs
- Unabridged
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More than 20 years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Martin Indyk - a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013 - has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand.
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Sad in its lack of creativity
- By Uri Pilichowski on 11-16-21
By: Martin Indyk
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Bloodlands
- Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required listening for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
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a warning for the future
- By judith on 11-06-19
By: Timothy Snyder
This does not happen in this outstanding work by Niall Ferguson. The author successfully tries to be a fly in the wall, observing and telling what happened throughout these first 45 years of Kissinger's life. All this by a remarkable research from unclassified documents to personal correspondence of Kissinger and other statesmen.
The cherry on the cake is the narration, with Roy McMillan superbly impersonating the voices of Kissinger and others.
Thorough and objective biography
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Tradeoff between peace and conflict. Never obvious to layman
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Magnificent
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Es la mejor biografía de los dilemas políticos y diplomáticos desde la segunda guerra hasta 1968.
Hsbra que esperar el segundo volumen que se encuentra en proceso de escritura.
Este libro es una delicia.
Una biografía intelectual excepcional
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very well researched
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Excellent narrative & narrator
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Kissinger
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