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  • World Order

  • Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History
  • By: Henry Kissinger
  • Narrated by: Nicholas Hormann
  • Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (272 ratings)
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World Order

By: Henry Kissinger
Narrated by: Nicholas Hormann
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Summary

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of World Order by Henry Kissinger, read by Nicholas Hormann.

World Order is the summation of Henry Kissinger's thinking about history, strategy and statecraft. As if taking a perspective from far above the globe, it examines the great tectonic plates of history and the motivations of nations, explaining the attitudes that states and empires have taken to the rest of the world from the formation of Europe to our own times.

Kissinger identifies four great 'world orders' in history - the European, Islamic, Chinese and American. Islamic states have looked to their destined expansion over regions populated by unbelievers, a position exemplified today by Iran under the ayatollahs. For over 2,000 years, the Chinese have seen 'all under heaven' as being tributary to the Chinese Emperor. America views itself as a 'city on a hill', a beacon to the world, whose values have universal validity.

How have these attitudes evolved, and how have they shaped the histories of their nations, their regions, and the rest of the world? What has happened when they have come into contact with each other? How have they balanced legitimacy and power at different times? What is the condition of each in our contemporary world, and how are they shaping relations between states now?

To answer these questions, Henry Kissinger draws upon a lifetime's historical study and unmatched experience as a world statesman. His account is shot through with observations about how historical change takes place, how some leaders shape their times and others fail to do so, and how far states can stray from the ideas which define them.

World Order is a masterpiece of narrative, analysis and portraits of great historical actors that only Henry Kissinger could have written.

©2016 Henry Kissinger (P)2016 Penguin Audio

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cringy

the title should be " the world order an american strategist wants you to believe in"

basically, everyones vision of a world order was to place themselves right at the center of it as some chosen people.

Except America, whose vision of a world order is made of universal values, moral and dedicated to the good of mankind.

America is a benevolent and selfless power that only intervenes in the world in order to create a world order that won't require its intervention.

after reading Perkins and Chomsky, it's hard to take Mr Kissingers claims seriously...



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8 people found this helpful

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recommended

great reading... good voice ...great story, amazingly educative book. offcourse it presents everything from an idealistic point of view, but it gives one the opportunity to have a better understanding on how the world works and how the great military powers are playing it.

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6 people found this helpful

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Kissinger's views on world order.

I could not agree with eveything Kissinger said. It was still an interesting to listen to the idea of someone who shape US foreign policy.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

Exceptional history of the modern state system.

If you've ever wondered what defines a country and why do we feel nationalistic pride this book will guide you through the events in modern history which has led us to where we are today.

I found the last few chapters a bit too American centric, but as the book well descriptions the last century has mostly been defined by the American view of world order.

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3 people found this helpful

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Essential International Relations text, regardless

Dr Kissinger's World Order takes as its premise the Westphalian state system, with an initial examination of the circumstances of European power that led to its creation, the play of European power throughout the ages, and the examination of alternative power structures, notably Islam and China.
The book is an excellent overview of how World Order functions, but contains some philosophical musings upon various contemporary factors affecting world order.
This book excels on several levels. The size, just right, plus the readability coupled with the breadth and scope make it an ideal book for anyone wanting to get a grasp of International Relations, or experienced international relations students (such as myself) who nonetheless want further knowledge and insight.
Overall, an excellent book and expertly put together.

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A bit like listening to Donald Trump with a PhD

The book is an excellent and useful overview of the various events, individuals and ideologies that have shaped the modern world. It's major downfall is the complete bias it has towards the US, describing it as a selfless, freedom-loving state that simply only wants good for the rest of the world, never putting it's own interest before the well-being of others. The same benefit-of-doubt attitude quickly disappears when discussing Europe or the Islamic world in which he becomes extremely critical, dismissive and condescending.

He sobers up ever so slightly when it comes to the invasion of Iraq but in summary he supports the US throughout and the "excellent statesmanship" shown by George Bush. Henry Kissinger is a true Republican and in some parts it does genuinely feel like I'm listening to Donald Trump with some brains.

All in all the book is a must read for those who want to understand the modern political landscape and is extremely useful to that end, if you can get past the blind patriotism.

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big propaganda

kissinger speaks about the world order without mentionning the oil market and west colonisation... usa is the best country in the world and is fighting the evil...

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Highly recommended

Excellently written and narrated. Offers a unique perspective and insight into some of the most consequential events of our time.

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Extremely overstated.

Had to stop it half way through and I always finish books. Factually not 100% accurate. Biased narrative at times.

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  • Overall
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    4 out of 5 stars

Pro-US view on geopolitics w/o Africa & S.America

If the US primary schools has one additional year and this book written by the Henry Kissinger was the introduction to geopolitics for the young Americans I could easily give this book 5 stars, it introduce you into development of the world order between states in Europe and challanges which were state politicians of some larger nations facing since middle ages, and do the same for the most important nations of Asia while describing US raise to a global superpower without getting too much into details about how the US got there and won over Soviets by preemptive actions beyond describing wars by disclosing some of the clandestine operations during which the US happily overthrown demorcratically elected leaders in foreign nations if they were not alligned with the US national interests or god forbid even tried to become friendly with the Soviet Union direclty or by aiming for more left leaning societies as are comparable to the US many European nations where governmental and corporate power is more evenly distributed in terms of ownership of infrastructure like in Norway, these clandestine operations that we know from leaks happened at least until recent decade were happily destroying democracies and replacing them with dictatorships if that met the US national interests while pretending that it was done for the sake of freedom or outright denying involvement until evidence proven otherwise...
The curriculum in the primary school of any superpower over the ages was meant to produce citizens that believed in the system and were willing to die for it by becoming soldiers if needed, so in this sense, Kissinger did a wonderful job portraying the US politics, its goals, and presidents in as much positive way as possible, which should not surprise anyone a bit once you consider that Kissinger was part of the system, because if he did not believe in it in a way he likely does, he would hardly become part of many questionable solutions to the world crisis and threats to the US national interests which description is in this book either completely missing or described as a push for the proliferation of freedom and western values, whatever that means if you end overthrowing democratically elected leaders.
Thus, if you are not looking for a book that will make you a blind believer of the existing system by forwarding only those facts that suits the US narrative of being the good guys trying to do the right thing all the time, and instead want realistic outlook on not only good things but also the intentional wrongdoings of the US, so past mistakes won't be repeated by your participation in the democratic process, you can as well see this book as the US disinformation campaign paid by your wallet opposition of which with Russian bias you can watch for free on Russia Today or China's CGTN network, because while you will be better equipped to understand some of the questionable decisions made by the US over the years, this book gives you next to no answers about what went wrong over the years when the US gradually become a superpower or why it went wrong...
So, this book would get easily 5 stars if it was a mandatory primary school curriculum for young Americans aimed to achieve unity of the nation and public support for repeating the same mistakes over and over, but it would get only 3 stars if you would want some book for your teenage kids entering the high school to make them understand how to make the US a better nation, or if you are not from the US and want to participate in the democratic process to prevent the US making your nation collateral damage in pursuit of its interests...
I give this book 4 stars becouse if you understand the purpose of this book and have sufficient knowledge of the world history to be able not get influenced by it too much, this book still have some useful information that you may not known regardless of purposely missing some important context from the opposition despite I am sure that Henry Kissinger is fully aware of less convinient parts of the history he decided to not meniton in order to not hurt goals of this book, which is definatelly not to make citizens well educated in geopolitics to a point that they would start to question and challenge current status quo thus leading to more democratic society at the expense of governments losing the ability to lie again and again about the true interests hidden behind the greater good excuses, the fact that there is next to no mention of geopolitics of nations in South America or Africa is only too convinient when influence over these continents rich in natural and human resources will make or break the future of many large nations around the world, which is just too convinient to forgot to mention, we would not want challenge behavior of our governments to these nations if we understanded their backrounds, Am I right???

Some questionable conclusions made in this book:
- Slavery was ended because we become a better society
Even if voices for ending slavery were in limited numbers heard from among intellectuals and the elite from the beginning, only with the industrial revolution that brought the need for a more educated workforce to operate machines that outperformed slaves by several times was there an economic incentive to do so, and this was likely major factor why it happened, not because we become a better society. Some war plans made by governments proposing taking land from rightful owners and turning the nation into a feudal society again if nuclear exchange happens in order for society to survive seems to confirm that, so we are more likely only as good as the current system & technology allows as to be, you can argue if removing woman rights for abortion to deal with the aging population without needing as many refugees that will not vote for conservatives isn't already enough proof enough about how we are not becoming more ethical and only adapting to mostly improving circumstances in our society...

- Vietnam War could be won if the US pressed harder with the bombings instead of giving pauses for negotiations
Despite popular belief, the mass bombing of civilian centers rarely achieved their goals of subduing the population into surrender simply because it was not their call in the first place, even notoriously promoted idea about how nukes prevented the US troops from needing to die on the Japan mainland is rather questionable once you realize that Japan capitulated only when Russia was on their doorstep thus any further delaying of surrender would likely result in a nation divided for decades like in the case of Germany, or up to present day as in case of Korea, just consider that is often cited as a fact that the US mass bombing campaign killed up to 1/4 of the North Korean population and the only thing they achieved was a draw...

To give Kissinger some credit he noted along the lines that history will be revisited and questioned, so we can learn from it to make a better society, and many mistakes were made despite some very bright people were in leadership due to limitation of information gathering at the time and understanding of the world we nowadays took for granted, so I have no doubt that the same people once in power would do much better with education and technology available today, I just frankly did not think that Kissinger made a very good job of making this book unbiased which is necessary to learn from past mistakes and find a reasonable compromise that would accept also the opposition instead of being forced into it just to throw such deal at the first moment the opportunity arises. Achieving a reasonable balance that would result in some resemblance of peace that is in short supply today should be our primary goal when instead of joining forces of nations towards common goals of saving the environment and helping developing nations often destroyed by the power play of more developed ones, we are bickering over who's backyard belong to who to the point of destroying our economic capacities to move forward, while Cuba being economically strangled to this day by the US that is happy to block any foreign deal with Cuba it can, Russia taking on Ukraine by military means, and conflict over Taiwan seems closer than ever for China to take over before the US rearm its army from anti-insurgency focused into conventional force once again capable to deal with two opponents at once as was once a goal for UK. Do we really need yet another book that portrays ourselves better despite our bad behavior just making a model to follow for nations aspiring to achieve our status at any cost??? Taking over inhabited islands by changing rules or ignoring them, forced labor, patent infringement, rigged elections, media designed to manufacture consent instead of giving voice to both sides of the conversation, and so on, I can assure you that any major issue we nowadays accuse of China and Russia is at some capacity committed by the US or its best "allies" and thus opposition will not listen to us as long as we keep our double standards towards hiding our own flaws that being copied as a model to follow...

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