Few modern day political figures have had more written about them than Henry Kissinger. From his own three volume, almost 4000 page memoir, to scores of books and articles. So why another we might ask historian Niall Ferguson.Partly because beyond the policy and papers, in Ferguson's view Kissinger personified that George Bernard Shaw quote, “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.”
That vision, that idealism, is hard to imagine in someone so vilified by contemporary history. Still, Niall Ferguson tries to square this circle in the first volume of his biography Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist
My conversation with Niall Ferguson:
