Thomas Schwartz: Henry Kissinger and American Power

Henry Kissinger was once hailed as a “miracle worker” for his peacemaking in the Middle East, pursuit of détente with the Soviet Union, negotiation of an end to the Vietnam War, and a secret plan to open the United States to China. Yet he was assailed from the left and from the right for his indifference to human rights, complicity in the pointless sacrifice of American and Vietnamese lives, and reliance on deception and intrigue. Was he a brilliant master strategist—“the 20th century’s greatest 19th century statesman”—or a cold-blooded monster who eroded America’s moral standing for the sake of self-promotion?

Diplomatic historian Thomas Schwartz offers a fair-minded answer to this question. Schwartz is Distinguished Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, where he specializes in the foreign relations of the United States. He has served on the U.S. State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee and as president of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. Henry Kissinger and American Power is his third book.

This conversation is part of the esteemed Lowell Lecture Series at the Boston Public library. The event is free to the public.

Learn more about the Vanderbilt Television News Archive that supported much of Schwartz’s research for this book. https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/


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