Zbig

The Life and Times of Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet

By: Edward Luce

Narrated by: Michael David Axtell

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An intimate and masterful biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski—President Carter’s national security advisor and one of America’s leading geopolitical thinkers—from one of the finest columnists and political writers at work today.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key architect of the Soviet Union’s demise, which ended the Cold War. A child of Warsaw—the heart of central Europe’s bloodlands—Brzezinski turned his fierce resentment at his homeland’s razing by Nazi Germany and the Red Army into a lifelong quest for liberty. Born the year that Joseph Stalin consolidated power, and dying a few months into Donald Trump’s first presidency, Brzezinski was shaped by and in turn shaped the global power struggles of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As counsel to US presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama, and chief foreign policy figure of the late 1970s under Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski converted his acclaim as a Sovietologist into Washington power. With Henry Kissinger, his lifelong rival with whom he had a fraught on-off relationship, he personified the new breed of foreign-born scholar who thrived in America’s “Cold War University”—and who ousted Washington’s gentlemanly class of WASPs who had run US foreign policy for so long.

Brzezinski’s impact, aided by his unusual friendship with the Polish-born John Paul II, sprang from his knowledge of Moscow’s “Achilles heel”—the fact that its nationalities, such as the Ukrainians, and satellite states, including Poland, yearned to shake off Moscow’s grip. Neither a hawk nor a dove, Brzezinski was a biting critic of George W. Bush’s Iraq War and an early endorser of Obama. Because he went against the DC grain of joining factions, and was on occasion willing to drop Democrats for Republicans, Brzezinski is something of history’s orphan. His historic role has been greatly underweighted. In the almost cinematic arc of his life can be found the grand narrative of the American century and great power struggle that followed.

The story was written in a strong and positive way.

I particularly liked the clearly way the book was written and the fact that it was written in a strong sense.

Great book

I wish the end of the book spoke more on his post 2010 thoughts and activities. But then it would be 2 volumes. Overall I thought it was a great book and very insightful.

Excellent!!

Remarkable account of a great man! Well written and very well researched ! Recommend this work highly for understanding the history of our times.

Incredible Fun Book; Serious Subject

Zbig by Ed Luce is a sumptuous and most fun work about a global treasure. The book reminds us that the US won’t get an extraordinary human being serving government like Zbig Brezinsky anymore. Looking forward to watching a film based on this book. And yes, a Zbig bubblehead, please.

a must read book

regardless of a specific opinions, there are so many crucial connections between elements of the biography of zbig and international or transatlantic events in the year 2025, that I am deeply ashamed of not knowing more about this history. this book I think does a great job of not only introducing salient history but opening doors to what must be further studied.