The good die young: the verdict on Henry Kissinger

When a public figure passes away, there is often an accompanying race to issue a final word on the individual and their legacy. Rarely, however, does this come in the form of an anti-eulogy, at least so soon after the subject's passing. This edited volume, put together by René Rojas, Bhaskar Sunkara and Jonah Walters, was announced within hours of the former US Secretary of State's death. The good die young is unapologetically critical of Henry Kissinger and his role in shaping US foreign policy over the course of several decades.

This is not an obituary in any conventional sense: the authors come to bury Kissinger, not praise him. It is a critical assessment that is polemical, controversial and provocative, to the extent that some readers might find it an uncomfortable read. Yet, it is also deeply refreshing. From its opening line, ‘If you're reading this, Henry Kissinger is dead’, to Leandros Fischer's damning denunciation of Kissinger as ‘a Machiavellian figure whose policies left a trail of blood from Santiago to East Timor’, this book pushes the boundaries (pp. 1 and 71). The Kissinger who emerges from this critical reassessment is difficult to sympathize with. The writing style is journalistic and intentionally accessible, permeated with a dark sense of cynicism that is at times deeply sardonic. It is perhaps intended as a work of critical journalism, but it is one with implications for International Relations (IR) scholars, especially in promoting a more critical engagement with the history of our field and those who have shaped it.

The volume is structured as a collection of brief essays, tracing Kissinger's influence in the regions affected by foreign policy that he championed. After a preface from the editors, and a perceptive introduction from Greg Grandin, the volume is divided into chapters that focus on a country or region: four are assigned to the Americas, one to Europe (namely Cyprus) and eight to the Middle East and Africa. The final chapter explores Kissinger's lucrative career as a private consultant after his retirement from political office.

The book appraises the impact of his decisions as a symbol of the excesses of US global power. This is a tension that runs through the edited volume, and an underlying theme is whether Kissinger should be remembered as an architect of atrocities or as a symbol of a system that facilitated them. Throughout, the answer that emerges is a potentially unsatisfying mixture of the two: a reflection of the complexity involved in the historical assessment of a figure as long-lived and controversial as Kissinger. For instance, Piero Gleijeses argues that Kissinger spearheaded US support for covert intervention in Angola to ‘exorcize the ghost of Vietnam’ out of a personal desire to undo the humiliation he saw himself as having suffered with US defeat (p. 83). Brett S. Morris similarly highlights the disconcerting pleasure Kissinger took in administering the illegal bombing of Cambodia, including directly setting targets to be bombed (p. 131). On the other hand, Carolyn Eisenberg argues Kissinger did not introduce a new paradigm in US foreign policy, but instead ‘hardened’ the orthodoxy he inherited (p. 150). René Rojas suggests his role in supporting the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile exacerbated the existing situation, but it was not the driving force behind the coup's success (p. 38). Overall, the contributors manage to assess Kissinger's long career ably; they strike an appropriate balance between Kissinger the actor and Kissinger the symbol.

There are central connective threads running throughout the book, but also plenty of diversity and range. On this note, the nature of this edited volume is one of its weaknesses: it is inherently a whistle-stop tour of a wide range of contexts and time periods that cannot be fully engaged with. However, its structure is also its biggest strength. It makes the book accessible to general readers and covers a vast range of historical contexts in a concise manner. There is much to say about Henry Kissinger, in part because of his extraordinary longevity, with a career spanning seven decades. It is easy to imagine him as a relic of a bygone age, born in the Weimar Republic a century ago, but the book roots him firmly in the present.

IR scholars should pay particular attention to this, given that Kissinger was active as an academic long before his formal involvement in US foreign policy. His name, for instance, first appeared in International Affairs in 1958 (see Denis Healey's ‘The Sputnik and western defence’, International Affairs, 34: 2, April 1958). There is much to be gained from this critical reassessment of a figure who, in the last decades of his life, straddled the complicated line between contemporary political actor and historical figure. This book provides an opportunity to reflect not only on his actions, but on the structures that enabled him.