Synopses & Reviews
An authoritative historical assessment of american foreign policy in a crucial postwar decade.
William Bundy's magisterial book focuses on the controversial record of Richard Nixon's and Henry Kissinger's often overpraised foreign policy of 1969 to 1973, an era that has rightly been described as the hinge on which the last half of the century turned. Bundy's principled, clear-eyed assessment in effect pulls together all the major issues and events of the thirty-year span from the 1940s to the end of the Vietnam War, and makes it clear just how dangerous the consequences of Nixon and Kissinger's deceptive modus operandi were.
Review
"Carefully written and painstakingly researched . . . nothing of importance is left out . . . a devasting, and within its limits definitive, dismantling of a certain myth. . . . [
A Tangled Web] anticipates what one must hope will be the considered judgment in history."--Tony Judt,
The New York Review of Books"A major critique . . . Bundy has made a strong case--a stimulating reconsideration of the gauzy nostalgia [for] Nixon's foreign policy."--James G. Hershberg, The Washington Post Book World
"Judicious and comprehensive . . . The most complete and balanced account of Nixon's foreign policy."--Mark Feeney, The Boston Globe
"An exemplary and fascinating story, and rather frightening."--William Pfaff, Los Angeles Times
About the Author
William Bundy held key positions in the Defense and State Departments from 1951 to 1969 and in the Central Intelligence Agency, and served as the editor of Foreign Affairs from 1972 to 1984. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.