Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial figures to emerge from the Cold War. He participated as a soldier, scholar, and statesman in many of the most significant policy debates of the period. He acted as an intellectual, diplomat, and White House official, implementing some of the most enduring shifts in international affairs. Most of all, Henry Kissinger appeared throughout the global media as a genius, villain, and consummate manipulator who wielded power at the most important points in recent history. Kissinger’s diverse experiences, and the varied public perceptions...

In November of 1936, a young man named Robert Johnson traveled from Mississippi to San Antonio, Texas, for his first recording session with the American Record Corporation. He was twenty-five years old and had already hoboed and hitchhiked north to Chicago and east to New York, playing guitar and singing for anyone who would listen. His music was a potent fusion of older styles learned from local musicians in the rural Delta and Memphis with the latest sounds on records, radio, and jukeboxes. His friend Johnny Shines would later recall that Johnson was terrifically versatile and...