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A review by iterdei
Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger
4.0
Loved the first half of this which was a wonderful historical analysis of - albeit only Western - diplomacy.
From the chapters on the Vietnam war onwards, the book became very focused on the USA point of view. It became basically solely focused on the dynamics around US foreign policy and their "opponent" the USSR, analysis on other parties was very limited. A bit of a let down in that sense. Although understandable because of the cold war and the personal experiences of the author, I missed the slightly more holistic view of the earlier chapters.
The first time the EU was mentioned was in the final chapter (which I - because of my own bias - found rather bizarre). Final chapter was a "look to the future" with foreign policy advice for the USA, which was interesting to read now that it is actually "the future" 30 years after publication of this book.
TLDR: good analysis, shows the depth of historical knowledge of the author which can be applied to diplomacy currently but second half mostly interesting when you want to know about the USA policy only.
From the chapters on the Vietnam war onwards, the book became very focused on the USA point of view. It became basically solely focused on the dynamics around US foreign policy and their "opponent" the USSR, analysis on other parties was very limited. A bit of a let down in that sense. Although understandable because of the cold war and the personal experiences of the author, I missed the slightly more holistic view of the earlier chapters.
The first time the EU was mentioned was in the final chapter (which I - because of my own bias - found rather bizarre). Final chapter was a "look to the future" with foreign policy advice for the USA, which was interesting to read now that it is actually "the future" 30 years after publication of this book.
TLDR: good analysis, shows the depth of historical knowledge of the author which can be applied to diplomacy currently but second half mostly interesting when you want to know about the USA policy only.