Author: Henry Kissinger
- Non-Fiction
- Debate
- ISBN: 9788418967283
- Release Date: 07-18-2023
Synopsis
Henry Kissinger, uno de los principales estrategas políticos del siglo xx, analiza en este nuevo libro los perfiles de seis de los líderes mundiales más fascinantes e influyentes del pasado reciente: Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew y Margaret Thatcher. Todos ellos se formaron en un periodo en el que las instituciones establecidas se derrumbaban en Europa, las estructuras coloniales daban paso a estados independientes en Asia y África y hubo que crear un nuevo orden internacional a partir de los vestigios del anterior.
Kissinger repasa el camino de De Gaulle para reconstruir la Francia postimperial, la rehabilitación llevada a cabo por Adenauer de una Alemania devastada por la guerra o el éxito del experimento de la pequeña ciudad Estado de Lee Kuan Yew en Singapur. El análisis de estos procesos sirve para mostrar las estrategias de gobierno de unos líderes que, impulsados por un alto sentido de Estado, se propusieron posicionar a sus respectivos países en el centro del tablero político mundial.
“Leaders,” writes Henry Kissinger in this compelling book, “think and act at the intersection of two axes: the first, between the past and the future; the second, between the abiding values and aspirations of those they lead. They must balance what they know, which is necessarily drawn from the past, with what they intuit about the future, which is inherently conjectural and uncertain. It is this intuitive grasp of direction that enables leaders to set objectives and lay down a strategy.”
In Leadership, Kissinger analyses the lives of six extraordinary leaders through the distinctive strategies of statecraft, which he believes they embodied. After the Second World War, Konrad Adenauer brought defeated and morally bankrupt Germany back into the community of nations by what Kissinger calls “the strategy of humility.” Charles de Gaulle set France beside the victorious Allies and renewed its historic grandeur by “the strategy of will.” During the Cold War, Richard Nixon gave geostrategic advantage to the United States by “the strategy of equilibrium.” After twenty-five years of conflict, Anwar Sadat brought a vision of peace to the Middle East by a “strategy of transcendence.” Against the odds, Lee Kuan Yew created a powerhouse city-state, Singapore, by “the strategy of excellence.” And, though Britain was known as “the sick man of Europe” when Margaret Thatcher came to power, she renewed her country’s morale and international position by “the strategy of conviction.”
