‘If I give you a copy of my book,’ I said to Henry Kissinger two months ago, ‘which chapter will you read first?’ ‘I will look myself up in the index,’ he replied in that voice that sounded like a cement mixer on the blink, ‘and start there.’ He automatically assumed that a book I had written with General David Petraeus on the evolution of conflict from 1945 to Ukraine would of course make reference to his career, his opinions, his contribution to history.