What made Henry Kissinger the kind of diplomat he was? What experiences and influences shaped his worldview and provided the framework for his approach to international relations? Jeremi Suri offers a thought-provoking, interpretive study of one of the most influential and controversial political figures of the twentieth century.

Drawing on research in more than six countries in addition to extensive interviews with Kissinger and others, Suri analyzes the sources of Kissinger's ideas and power and explains why he pursued the policies he did. Kissinger's German-Jewish background, fears of democratic weakness, belief in the primacy of the relationship between the United States and Europe, and faith in the indispensable role America plays in the world shaped his career and his foreign policy. Suri shows how Kissinger's early years in Weimar and Nazi Germany, his experiences in the U.S. Army and at Harvard University, and his relationships with powerful patrons--including Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon--shed new light on the policymaker.

Kissinger's career was a product of the global changes that made the American Century. He remains influential because his ideas are rooted so deeply in dominant assumptions about the world. In treating Kissinger fairly and critically as a historical figure, without polemical judgments, Suri provides critical context for this important figure. He illuminates the legacies of Kissinger's policies for the United States in the twenty-first century.

The proliferation of “minilateral” summits is reshaping how international security problems are addressed, yet these summits remain a poorly understood phenomenon. In this groundbreaking work, Kjell Engelbrekt contrasts the most important minilateral summits—the G7 (formerly G8) and G20—with the older and more formal UN Security Council to assess where the diplomacy of international security is taking place and whether these institutions complement or compete with each other.

Engelbrekt’s research in primary-source documents of the G7, G8, G20, and UN Security Council provides unique insight into how these institutions deliberate on three policy areas: conflict management, counterterrorism cooperation, and climate change mitigation. Relatively informal and flexible, GX diplomacy invites more countries to take a seat at the table and allows nontraditional security threats to be placed on the agenda. Engelbrekt concludes, however, that there is a continuing need for institutions like the UN to address traditional security problems.

High-Table Diplomacy will provoke discussion and further research on the role of minilateral summits among scholars of international relations, security studies, and international organizations.

The man whom Indian nationalists perceived as the “George Washington of India” and who was President of the Indian National Congress in 1938–1939 is a legendary figure. Called Netaji (“leader”) by his countrymen, Subhas Chandra Bose struggled all his life to liberate his people from British rule and, in pursuit of that goal, raised and led the Indian National Army against Allied Forces during World War II. His patriotism, as Gandhi asserted, was second to none, but his actions aroused controversy in India and condemnation in the West.

Now, in a definitive biography of the revered Indian nationalist, Sugata Bose deftly explores a charismatic personality whose public and private life encapsulated the contradictions of world history in the first half of the twentieth century. He brilliantly evokes Netaji’s formation in the intellectual milieu of Calcutta and Cambridge, probes his thoughts and relations during years of exile, and analyzes his ascent to the peak of nationalist politics. Amidst riveting accounts of imprisonment and travels, we glimpse the profundity of his struggle: to unite Hindu and Muslim, men and women, and diverse linguistic groups within a single independent Indian nation. Finally, an authoritative account of his untimely death in a plane crash will put to rest rumors about the fate of this “deathless hero.”

This epic of a life larger than its legend is both intimate, based on family archives, and global in significance. His Majesty’s Opponent establishes Bose among the giants of Indian and world history.

In A History of Diplomacy, historian Jeremy Black investigates how a form of courtly negotiation and information-gathering in the early modern period developed through increasing globalization into a world-shaping force in twenty-first-century politics. The monarchic systems of the sixteenth century gave way to the colonial development of European nations—which in turn were shaken by the revolutions of the eighteenth century—the rise and progression of multiple global interests led to the establishment of the modern-day international embassy system. In this detailed and engaging study of the ever-changing role of international relations, the aims, achievements, and failures of foreign diplomacy are presented along with their complete historical and cultural background.