Book Review: Henry Kissinger, World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History
| DOI | 10.1177/0020881717726914 |
| Published date | 01 January 2016 |
| Author | Krishnendra Meena |
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
84 Book Reviews
Overall, this is must read for anyone teaching or researching on changing
paradigms of global aid and development architecture.
Gulshan Sachdeva
Professor, Centre for European Studies
School of International Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi
India
E-mail: gulshanjnu@gmail.com
Henry Kissinger, World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations
and the Course of History (London: Allen Lane, 2014), 420 pp. £25.
DOI: 10.1177/0020881717726914
Henry Kissinger, the name itself evokes images of a larger than life figure, who
played a role in shaping foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War
years. The career diplomat served as the US Secretary of State and National
Security Advisor (NSA) for two administrations (Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford).
He was NSA from 1969 and later concurrently held the position of the secretary
of state from 1973–1977. With this experience at the highest levels of diplomacy,
he played a prominent role in the formulation of US strategy in the international
arena and thereby shaping a bipolar world order. The book by Kissinger under
review delves deep into the European history and looks for instances of a European
order and the resultant world order. He argues that any semblance of a world order
is visible only after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) when the European states
pledged to respect each other’s sovereignty. He agrees that there have been
empires in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia but they did not lead to
world vision or an order, which was global in its reach and expanse.
The Europeans with their colonial expansion beginning from the sixteenth cen-
tury till the twentieth century played out the politics of the continent in the interna-
tional system and in their respective colonies or over the domination and capture of
new territories. The European order, therefore, was reflected in the world order,
which the European states sought to establish. The geopolitical imagination/vision
of an international system and order in it, he argued that were results of superior
naval capabilities and armoury of the Europeans through which they held a number
of colonies around the world. However, what operated on the continent after the
Treaty of Westphalia and the Treaty of Versailles was the ‘balance of power’.
In Kissinger’s geopolitical vision, ‘religion’ plays a substantial and significant
role. The chapter scheme in the book is also arranged accordingly with the chapters
on Europe focusing extensively on Christianity, and the chapters on Asia have
sections dedicated to the world visions emanating from various religions. In these
chapters, Islam has been projected as a religion, which seeks expansion and
proselytization, and other Asiatic empires existing at any point in history displayed
similar traits, Kissinger argues. These ideas lead the reader back to the work of
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