Kissinger, Walter Isaacson
Kissinger, Walter Isaacson
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Kissinger
A Biography

Author: Walter Isaacson

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Unabridged: 34 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/10/2013


Synopsis

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 worlds imagination. Yet Kissinger was also reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists.Kissingerexplores the relationship between this complex mans personality and the foreign policy he pursued. Drawing on extensive interviews with Kissinger as well as 150 other sources, including US presidents and his business clients, this first full-length biography makes use of many of Kissingers private papers and classified memos to tell his uniquely American story. The result is an intimate narrative, filled with surprising revelations, that follows this grandly colorful statesman from his childhood as a persecuted Jew in Nazi Germany, through his tortured relationship with Richard Nixon, to his later years as a globe-trotting business consultant.

About Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, DC. He has been the chairman and CEO of CNN and the editor of Time Magazine. In 2011 he wrote a biography titled “Steve Jobs”, which was based off on over forty interviews with Jobs over a two-year period up until shortly before his death. It became an international best-seller, breaking all records for sales of a biography.

Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career at “The Sunday Times” of London and then the New Orleans “Times-Picayune”. He joined “Times” in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor, and editor of digital media before becoming the magazine’s 14th editor in 1996. He became chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.

Along with “Steve Jobs”, Isaacson has published several other books, including: “Einstein: His Life and Universe” (2007), “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” (2003) and Kissinger: A Biography” (1992), as well as coauthor of “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made” (1986). His most recent book, “The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution” (2014) is a biographical tale of the people who invented the computer, Internet and the other great innovations of the digital age. It became a New York Times bestseller.

Isaacson has been awarded many accolades of the years, including in 2012, when he was selected as one of the Time 100, the magazine’s list of the most influential people in the world.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Barry on November 18, 2020

At first I was hesitant about reading a biography of Henry Kissinger because I was concerned about what kind of author could grasp the complexities of Kissinger’s times, his expertise in foreign relations, and personal nuances. However, after reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, I deci......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on March 15, 2024

Walter Isaacson's Kissinger is a judicious biography of America's most controversial statesman. Henry Kissinger, a Bavarian Jew who fled Nazi Germany in the '30s, emerged in the United States as a leading intellectual and policymaker, first as a Harvard political scientist, then as an informal advis......more

Goodreads review by Steven on November 23, 2009

Walter Isaacson, who has written esteemed biographies of Benjamin Franklin, The Wise Men, and Einstein, tackles the complex character of Henry Kissinger, academic, diplomat, and consultant. Kissinger is a difficult character to pin down, as Isaacson notes. He was devious, self-promoting, self-deprec......more

Goodreads review by Owlseyes on December 02, 2023

When I came here in 1938, I was asked to write an essay at George Washington High School about what it meant to be an American. I wrote that . . . I thought that this was a country where one could walk across the street with one’s head erect.—from a Kissinger farewell speech as secretary of stat......more

Goodreads review by Maćkowy on April 22, 2024

Gdyby Henry Kissinger był postacią literacką przez Georga R.R. Martina lub Joe Abercrombiego na pewno byłby ulubieńcem czytelników. Diablo inteligentny, błyskotliwy, czarujący, dowcipny, ale też dbający przede wszystkim o własny interes i kompletnie amoralny - wypisz wymaluj lord Littefinger z Gry o......more