Great book! Makes you question the notion that competence in managing American foreign policy has declined in recent years. It illuminates and helps explain the modern history of the United States and the world.Ī Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013

The story of the Dulles brothers is the story of America. These campaigns helped push countries from Guatemala to the Congo into long spirals of violence, led the United States into the Vietnam War, and laid the foundation for decades of hostility between the United States and countries from Cuba to Iran. Propelled by a quintessentially American set of fears and delusions, the Dulles brothers launched violent campaigns against foreign leaders they saw as threats to the United States. This is how the Dulles brothers saw themselves, and how many Americans still see their country's role in the world. The Brothers explores hidden forces that shape the national psyche, from religious piety to Western movies-many of which are about a noble gunman who cleans up a lawless town by killing bad guys. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?

In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the background of American culture and history. John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's worldĭuring the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.

The brothers by stephen kinzer