Brent Scowcroft (1925–2020)

A World Transformed is a combined memoir of former president George Bush and his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft. It is unusual among presidential memoirs not only in that Bush wrote it with a member of his administration, but that it focuses solely on foreign policy.

Bush and Scowcroft take four events during Bush's presidency and describe how they dealt with those events, both internally and with allies and foes. Those events are the Eastern European revolutions of the late-80s, the question of German unification, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

George Bush was president during one of the most tumultuous periods in modern world history. The U.S.-Soviet competition was one of the primary drivers of international relations in the last half of the twentieth century. While that competition had already started to fade by the time he took office, his memoir shows how he deftly handled the eventual ending of that competition. The ability to empathize with one's opposites in another government is an almost necessary skill to have if a president is going to be successful in his foreign policy. The episodes involving German unification and the possible secession of Lithuania from the Soviet Union show that Bush and Scowcroft had that ability in spades.

A World Transformed is a key resource for anyone interested in understanding the final days of the Cold War.… (meer)