The 90 year old dean of American Secretaries of State holds forth in this readable and unsettling volume. Drawing on his deep knowledge of world history, Kissinger takes the reader through Europe (Westphalian Peace after the Thirty Years War in 1648 and the Congress of Vienna ending the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 which created the concept of sovereign states operating on an equal basis in a balance of power environment), Japan (a society which considers itself superior and ideally isolated from others accommodating after WWII), China (a society which still feels it is the center of the universe and is now taking on the mantle of world leadership), India (a nation created by the British and expert at absorbing foreign influence without changing), Iran (the center of radical Islam which says you’re either with us or open to war for Islam’s victory world wide). The breakdown of the Westphalian system after WWI and II and under the influence of modern trends (disintegration of nation states and rise of non-state entities, e.g ISIS; the unlinking of economic and political policy and structures; the lack of settings or rather the ineffective plethora of settings for the major powers to work out disagreements; and America’s lack of clarity on the balance between power and legitimacy) along with the rise of cyberspace and the need for instant responses, all place the world in a precarious situation today. Freedom and Order; Power and Legitimacy are the major issues for this statesman and modern day Metternich/Bismarck.