The I Index

The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War

Next in the queue

72

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

92/100

Critics

53/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Luke A. Nichter

Publisher:

Yale University Press

Date:

September 22, 2020

Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. did--in the postwar era, perhaps only George Marshall, Henry Kissinger, and James Baker. Lodge, however, had the distinction of wielding that influence under presidents of both parties. For three decades, he was at the center of American foreign policy, serving as advisor to five presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Gerald Ford, and as ambassador to the United Nations, Vietnam, West Germany, and the Vatican. In this book, historian Luke A. Nichter gives us a compelling narrative of Lodge's extraordinary and consequential life.

What The Reviewers Say

Jessica T. Matthews,
Foreign Affairs
Nichter’s biography goes a long way to correcting Lodge’s omission, filling in the blanks on the life of this fascinating man who played a central role in U.S. foreign policy for more than three decades..
Gerald J. Russello,
The Wall Street Journal
In The Last Brahmin Mr. Nichter, a professor of history at Texas A&M University-Central Texas, presents Lodge as a man who believed he owed much to the nation, and so believed the nation should use him as it saw fit.
Steve Donoghue,
Open Letters Review
[Nichter] is careful to ballast his book with colorful anecdotes; The Last Brahmin is unexpectedly entertaining reading throughout.