Justin Vaïsse, a French historian of the United States, is Director of Policy Planning at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Reading Justin Vaïsse’s impressive new book, Zbigniew Brzezinski:
America’s Grand Strategist, it is difficult to miss the echoes of
our own times in the early 1970s…If the publication of Brzezinski
could hardly be timelier, the author could not be more apt…The
book’s achievement is in part corrective. Brzezinski rehabilitates
a thinker and actor whom other writers have too often
underestimated…Vaïsse’s broad panorama achieves important
perspective on the Carter years…Readers will encounter in
Brzezinski an eloquent introduction to a major strategic thinker
and a thoughtful meditation upon the useful work that ideas and
intellectuals can perform in the policy arena.
*Washington Post*
Vaïsse gives Brzezinski high marks. Apart from Kissinger, no
adviser so dominated a president’s agenda. His intellect was as
sharp as his tongue.
*Financial Times*
Will probably stand for some time as the definitive portrayal of a
sharp mind and sometimes sharp tongue that attracted critics and
opponents, as well as admirers and such famous proteges and
colleagues as Madeleine Albright and Robert Gates… What separates
the Vaïsse book from the pack is a detailed and perceptive study of
the rise of an academic complex in the making of U.S. foreign
policy.
*PBS NewsHour*
Vaïsse’s biography of U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s national
security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, reminds readers just what an
extraordinary phenomenon this Polish outsider was… Vaïsse’s
evenhanded appraisal of Brzezinski’s contributions to U.S. foreign
policy will…introduce a new generation of readers to a great
American strategist.
*Foreign Affairs*
In his compelling biography of Brzezinski, Justin Vaïsse places
[him] squarely in the fourth generation of decision-makers who
helped turn the United States into a world power.
*Literary Review*
Brzezinski must have been pleased by what he knew of the work
(first published in French shortly before his death). The readers,
too, will be pleased. This is a solid account of Brzezinski’s
absorbing journey.
*National Interest*
This man with the unpronounceable name was one of the most
influential in the world, but also one of the hardest to
categorize… A foremost authority on U.S. foreign relations, Justin
Vaïsse enthusiastically traces the extraordinary career of this son
of a Polish consul. A captivating account of a decisive figure who
navigated through deep political crosscurrents in order to extend
American influence across the globe.
*L’Express*
Justin Vaïsse’s life of Zbigniew Brzezinski is remarkable in every
way. More than a simple biography, this serious study is an
original and meticulous account of the American diplomatic
machine.
*LeLitteraire.com*
A specialist in American foreign relations, Vaïsse offers a
voluminous biography of a man he considers one of the most
consequential figures of the past century.
*Le Point*
This first-rate intellectual biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski fills
a longstanding gap in existing work on one of America’s most
visible yet undervalued scholar-policymakers of the past fifty
years. Nuanced and on the whole convincing, this book provides an
excellent overview of the impact Brzezinski had after his
relatively brief time in high office.
*Jussi Hanhimäki, author of The Flawed Architect: Henry
Kissinger and American Foreign Policy*
Vaïsse profiles one of the few men who transformed American foreign
policy in the second half of the twentieth century. He offers a
compelling account of how immigration, education, and technology
changed American power and ideals. He also reminds us how important
the intellectual debates about power and ideals were during the
Cold War, and how important they remain today.
*Jeremi Suri, author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and
Fall of America’s Highest Office*
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