Book Review / Revue de livres
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Book Review Editor: Ralph Mahar - Suggestions for Book Reviews will be gratefully received at thepillarsociety.bulletins@gmail.com
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Rédacteur en chef des critiques de livres : Ralph Mahar - Les suggestions de critiques de livres sont les bienvenues à l'adresse suivante : thepillarsociety.bulletins@gmail.com |
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| Zbigniew Brzezinski, counselor and trustee, Center For Strategic And International Studies, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015, before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing to examine global challenges and US national security strategy. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) |
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Book Review: Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet
by Edward Luce
May 13, 2025
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
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Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet
by Edward Luce
An intimate and masterful biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski—President Carter’s national security advisor and one of America’s leading geopolitical thinkers—from one of the finest columnists and political writers at work today.
Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key architect of the Soviet Union’s demise, which ended the Cold War. A child of Warsaw—the heart of central Europe’s bloodlands—Brzezinski turned his fierce resentment at his homeland’s razing by Nazi Germany and the Red Army into a lifelong quest for liberty. Born the year that Joseph Stalin consolidated power, and dying a few months into Donald Trump’s first presidency, Brzezinski was shaped by and in turn shaped the global power struggles of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As counsel to US presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama, and chief foreign policy figure of the late 1970s under Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski converted his acclaim as a Sovietologist into Washington power. With Henry Kissinger, his lifelong rival with whom he had a fraught on-off relationship, he personified the new breed of foreign-born scholar who thrived in America’s “Cold War University”—and who ousted Washington’s gentlemanly class of WASPs who had run US foreign policy for so long.
Brzezinski’s impact, aided by his unusual friendship with the Polish-born John Paul II, sprang from his knowledge of Moscow’s “Achilles heel”—the fact that its nationalities, such as the Ukrainians, and satellite states, including Poland, yearned to shake off Moscow’s grip. Neither a hawk nor a dove, Brzezinski was a biting critic of George W. Bush’s Iraq War and an early endorser of Obama. Because he went against the DC grain of joining factions, and was on occasion willing to drop Democrats for Republicans, Brzezinski is something of history’s orphan. His historic role has been greatly underweighted. In the almost cinematic arc of his life can be found the grand narrative of the American century and great power struggle that followed.
Indigo / Amazon |
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Reviews:
"A brilliant architect of the American Century, Zbigniew Brzezinski deserves a brilliant biography, and Ed Luce has given us just that: a sensitive, deeply researched, and fair-minded portrait of a man who had a remarkable journey and has left America, and the world, the most significant of legacies."
-- "Jon Meacham, New York Times bestselling author
A solid work of political and diplomatic history, with much insight into modern geopolitics. - Kirkus Reviews |
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See also:
Zbig as reviewed by Jean-Thomas Nicole for The Cipher Brief - June 27, 2025
Note: Jean-Thomas Nicole is a Policy Advisor with Public Safety Canada. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policies or positions of Public Safety Canada or the Canadian government.
Zbig - as reviewed by Kirkus Review - May 28, 2025 |
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| Edward Luce on the Life and Legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski - Chicago Council on Global Affairs. A discussion moderated by Jane Harman; a former President, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, and U.S.congressional representative (D - California) ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee (2002–2006), before she chaired the Homeland Security Committee's Intelligence Subcommittee (2007–2011). |
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About the book:
Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet
by Edward Luce
Simon and Schuster - 560 pages 34.99 (Kindle)
Publication Date: May 13, 2025
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About the Author: Edward Luce
Edward Luce is US national editor and columnist for the Financial Times (FT). Before that he was the FT's Washington bureau chief, South Asia bureau chief, capital markets editor and Philippines correspondent. He is highly regarded by policymakers and leaders and his articles are regularly the ‘most read’ on the FT website. In his work, Luce brings global insights to bear into the future of work and the major challenges facing the West, including the rise of populism and the decline of the middle class.
He is the author of three highly acclaimed books, The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017), Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent (2012) and In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (2007), praised by the Economist as “likely to be the definitive book on India for some time to come”. He appears regularly on CNN, NPR, MSNBC’s Morning Joe and the BBC. Luce is also the author, along with colleague Rana Foroohar, of the FT Swamp Notes newsletter, a twice weekly read which covers the intersection of money, power and politics in America.
Between 1999 and 2001 he was the speechwriter for treasury secretary in the Clinton Administration, Lawrence Summers. Luce earned a degree in politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Oxford; he earned a postgraduate degree in newspaper journalism at City University in London.
Biography Credit: Centre for Development and Enterprise
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À propos du livre :
Zbig : La vie de Zbigniew Brzezinski, le grand prophète de la puissance américaine
par Edward Luce
Simon and Schuster - 560 pages 34,99 $ (Kindle)
Date de publication : 13 mai 2025 |
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