Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson
Henry Kissinger is one of the architects of our current political order. First sworn in as fifty-sixth secretary of state on September 22, 1973, he received the Nobel Peace Prize that same year, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Medal of Liberty in 1986. This was a world away from Fürth, Germany, where he was born in 1938 as Heinz Alfred Kissinger to an Orthodox Jewish school teacher. With the election of Donal Trump and rising nationalism across the world, we are looking into the next chapter, a new New World Order. As ever, it helps to understand the past to make predictions for the future, which is why I was looking forward to reading Dr. Kissinger’s new biography by Niall Ferguson.