Kissinger, Volume 1

****The definitive biography of Henry Kissinger, based on unprecedented access to his private papers****

No American statesman has been as revered or as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super K"-the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama-he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon" for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial two-volume biography, drawing not only on Kissinger's hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than a hundred archives around the world, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.

The first half of Kissinger's life is usually skimmed over as a quintessential tale of American ascent: the Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany who made it to the White House. But in this first of two volumes, Ferguson shows that what Kissinger…