Books, Arts & Manners

The Kirkpatrick Mission: Diplomacy without Apology, by Allan Gerson (Free Press, 291 pp., $22.95)

IN his classic history The Congress of Vienna, Sir Harold Nicolson, the British statesman and author, repeats Prince Metternich’s self-assessment: “I am bad at skirmishes, but I am good at campaigns.” Determination in the face of opposition is one of the qualities that great actors on the international stage, whether persons or nations, must possess in order to alter the course of world events. In our time, Jeane Kirkpatrick was such a political figure—one who recognized that politics is a struggle to impose one’s values and ideas on the international system. It is a struggle that never ceases, that takes place on many levels, and that, despite diplomacy’s politeness and blandishments, is founded on mankind’s most savage instincts. To succeed in this arena, one must be good at campaigns, not just skirmishes.

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Chris Gacek

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The Kirkpatrick Mission: Diplomacy without Apology, by Allan Gerson (Free Press, 291 pp., $22.95)

IN his classic history The Congress of Vienna, Sir Harold Nicolson, the British statesman and author, repeats Prince Metternich’s self-assessment: “I am bad at skirmishes, but I am good at campaigns.” Determination in the face of opposition is one of the qualities that great actors on the international stage, whether persons or nations, must possess in order to alter the course of world events. In our time, Jeane Kirkpatrick was such a political figure—one who recognized that politics is a struggle to impose one’s values and ideas on the international system. It is a struggle that never ceases, that takes place on many levels, and that, despite diplomacy’s politeness and blandishments, is founded on mankind’s most savage instincts. To succeed in this arena, one must be good at campaigns, not just skirmishes.