World Order

international community is invoked perhaps more insistently now than in any other era, it presents no clear or agreed set of goals, methods, or limits.

Our age is insistently, at times almost desperately, in pursuit of a concept of world order. Chaos threatens side by side with unprecedented interdependence: in the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the disintegration of states, the impact of environmental depredations, the persistence of genocidal practices, and the spread of new technologies threatening to drive conflict beyond human control or comprehension. New methods of accessing and communicating information unite regions as never before and project events globally but in a manner that inhibits reflection, demanding of leaders that they register instantaneous reactions in a form expressible in slogans. Are we facing a period in which forces beyond the restraints of any order determine the future?

generations from an old man steeped in the past . . . it is a book that every member of Congress should be locked in a room with and forced to read before taking the oath of office."  John Micklethwait, The New York Times Book Review

"Recent years have not been kind to those who believe in America's missionary role abroad. Since the terrorist attacks of 2001 upended our sense of the world, the United States has been governed by a conservative idealist who tried to impose American values on the Middle East, and failed calamitously, and a liberal idealist who invited America's adversaries to re-engage with us on the basis of a new humility and mutual respect, and found his hopes dashed. It is, in short, a moment for Henry Kissinger . . . The fact that he has written yet another book, the succinctly titled World Order, is impressive in itself. What is more remarkable is that it effectively carries on his campaign to undermine the romantic pieties of left and right that have shaped so much of American foreign policy over the past century. Mr. Kissinger bids fair to outlast many of the people who hate him and make others forget why they hated him in the first place."  James Traub, The Wall Street Journal

Kissinger s book takes us on a dazzling and instructive global tour of the quest for order. . . . The key to Kissinger s foreign policy realism, and the theme at the heart of his magisterial new book, is that such humility is important not just for people but also for nations, even the U.S. Making progress toward a world order based on 'individual dignity and participatory governance' is a lofty ideal, he notes. 'But progress toward it will need to be sustained through a series of intermediate stages.'   Walter Isaacson, Time

"Kissinger's geopolitical analysis of our global challenges is compelling . . . Mark Twain, who was known more for his sense of humor than his diplomatic skills, once said, 'History does not repeat itself. But it rhymes.' Kissinger's advice is not nearly as glib, but much more valuable to a country that right now seems to want the rest of the world to just go away."  The Los Angeles Times

"Kissinger . . . demonstrates why he remains such a courted adviser to American presidents and foreign leaders alike. . . . [World Order is] a guide for the perplexed, a manifesto for reordering America s approach to the rest of the globe. Kissinger s vision could help to shape a more tranquil era than the one that has emerged so far.   Jacob Heilbrunn, The National Interest

"An astute analysis that illuminates many of today's critical international issues." Kirkus Reviews