With this radical interpretation, I explore the evolution in the meaning of key concepts that appear again and again throughout Kissinger’s works, including legitimate order, balance of power, revolutionary state, national interest, and leadership. In the main analysis I argue that Kissinger should be best understood as a scholar within the subfield of Foreign Policy Analysis, even though his emphasis on order and shared values among sovereign states is most in tune with Structural Realism, otherwise known as the English School of International Relations. First, I provide a thumbnail sketch of Kissinger’s life and times to facilitate thinking about the developments which shaped his political thought. I conclude that while World Order often fails to engage with many of the major academic debates of our time, it remains an important work in the canon of Realism for successfully summarizing Kissinger’s oeuvre in the service of the busy policy practitioner and the interested public.īy focusing on Kissinger’s more theoretical works, I hope to draw attention to the contributions and problems of Kissinger the academic, hidden for so long in plain sight beneath the shadow of his own social clout.

Third, I point out certain flaws in Kissinger’s historical narrative, and contextualize his project from a historian’s perspective.

Second, I explore Kissinger’s descriptions of the three international orders – the Westphalian, the Asian, and the Islamic, arguing that they are somewhat removed from the contemporary academic debates, and ponder over how this should influence the way we read Kissinger’s project. First, I reconstruct the broad sweep of the book’s arguments, point out its various strengths, and explore the overall purpose of the book in the context of Kissinger’s work, life, and times. This long essay seeks to address the many issues raised in World Order and highlighted by the reviewers in three parts.

Henry kissinger world order sparknotes