Perhaps the best-known American diplomatist of this century, Henry Kissinger is a major figure in world history, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and arguably one of the most brilliant minds ever placed at the service of American foreign policy, as well as one of the shrewdest, best-informed, and most articulate figures ever to occupy a position of power in Washington.

The third and final volume of his memoirs completes a major work of contemporary history. It is at once an historical document and a narrative of almost Shakespearean intensity, full of startling insights, unusual (and often unsparing) candor, and a sweeping sense of history.

Above all, here are intimate, candid, and sharply intelligent portraits of world leaders, from Mao Zedong teasing Kissinger with a characteristic mixture of brutality and acerbic subtlety, to Leonid Brezhnev, confused, unwell, desperately trying to conceal the Soviet Union's growing difficulties with a facade of blustering bravado, as well as a galaxy of European, Middle Eastern, Asian, Latin American, and African leaders.