[Kissinger] has surely enjoyed success — secretary of state, winner of the National Book Award and the Nobel Peace Prize — yet always in chorus with charges of sin.

Gewen...has written a sterling, highly readable intellectual biography of Henry Kissinger. Although the former U.S. secretary of state has been out of office for more than 40 years, Gewen convincingly argues that a full appreciation of Kissinger’s realist philosophy is now more important than ever, as the United States rethinks its role in the world.

... a manifesto or summa of his efforts to convert Kissinger’s critics and would-be prosecutors into his students.

Gewen presents a vivid, insightful, but unsparing portrait of Kissinger’s intellectual development and boundless ambition as he journeyed from Nazi Germany, to the U.S. Army, to academia, to the inner circles of power in Washington..

...[a] meticulously researched, consistently stimulating and deeply insightful intellectual biography.

This authoritative and exhaustive biography will challenge general readers, but will find an appreciative audience among political scholars and modern philosophy academics. A solid companion to Thomas Schwartz’s Henry Kissinger and American Power..

...Gewen offers a biography focused on the major historical and philosophical influences on Kissinger’s approach to diplomacy.

Masterly work on the making of Henry Kissinger—and what American foreign policy can learn from his dark experience and pessimistic outlook.

...[a] trenchant debut.