As a historical figure, Dr. Kissinger’s reputation has been controversial, and my parents always thought of him as a world-class creep.
But I’ve only heard positive comments about his books. What do you say, Doper community? Is Diplomacy and the like worth reading?
I read Diplomacy many years ago, and yes, I recommend it for anyone with an interest in history and diplomacy and international relations. IIRC, the book focuses a lot on the international relations in Europe in the late 1800’s (which included Czarist Russia), during which time the modern general schema of international (European) relations evolved, which came to be called (by Bismarck, IIRC) the “World Order”.
Also discusses the word games and double-talk and posturing of international diplomats as they try to play the diplomacy game while protecting their oh-so-fragile diplomatic egos.
Kissinger is like Churchill. They’re skilled writers but you have to remember they’re not writing objective history. They’re presenting their side of events. This can be true even when they’re writing about a historical subject but it gets more notable the closer they were to the events they’re talking about.
So the early chapters of Diplomacy where Kissinger is writing about figures like Richelieu and Bismarck are great (although even here Kissinger may give too much weight to the role of diplomacy in the making of history). But the chapters dealing with the Cold War are unbalanced and the chapters on the Nixon administration even more so.