PositiveThe Wall Street Journal... the second volume of his expertly crafted history of modern Europe ... a heavy but elegant book—primarily a work of political history that segues into socio-economics and culture. While Mr. Kershaw offers no major reinterpretation of the period, he has produced an accessible scholarly synthesis, panoramic in scope and sound in judgment ... given the emphasis he places on the quality of leadership, one cannot but look with some angst at its absence today.
George Packer
RaveNew Statesman (UK)Mercifully, George Packer...is such a masterful narrator—and Holbrooke such a vexing subject to portray—that this story is both gripping and surprisingly pacey, its wheels greased by revealing excerpts from Holbrooke’s personal letters and the private reflections he recorded to tape. Added to this is Packer’s arresting thesis: that his brash but erudite and driven subject symbolizes something about America’s engagement with the world following the Second World War that will never be recovered after Trump ... To Packer, despite all these flaws, he was \'that rare American in the treetops who actually gave a shit about the dark places of the Earth.\'
