Summary of Stephen Kinzer's The Brothers

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 The first American member of this family, Joseph Dulles, fled Ireland in 1778 to escape anti-Protestant repression, made his way to South Carolina, and became a prosperous, slave-owning planter. His family was pious and inclined to the clergy.

#2 The Dulles family was extremely religious, and their sons were raised that way. They attended three church services every Sunday, and afterward they would discuss and analyze their father’s sermons.

#3 John Watson Foster, the first American secretary of state to participate in the overthrow of a foreign government, was a protolobbyist who thrived on his ability to shape American foreign policy to the benefit of well-paying clients.

#4 The brothers were raised by their grandfather, Foster, who took them to Washington DC to spend the winter with him. They attended dinner parties with ambassadors, senators, cabinet secretaries, and other prominent figures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669387602

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Stephen Kinzer's The Brothers

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first American member of this family, Joseph Dulles, fled Ireland in 1778 to escape anti-Protestant repression, made his way to South Carolina, and became a prosperous, slave-owning planter. His family was pious and inclined to the clergy.

#2

The Dulles family was extremely religious, and their sons were raised that way. They attended three church services every Sunday, and afterward they would discuss and analyze their father’s sermons.

#3

John Watson Foster, the first American secretary of state to participate in the overthrow of a foreign government, was a protolobbyist who thrived on his ability to shape American foreign policy to the benefit of well-paying clients.

#4

The brothers were raised by their grandfather, Foster, who took them to Washington DC to spend the winter with him. They attended dinner parties with ambassadors, senators, cabinet secretaries, and other prominent figures.

#5

Foster and Allie were extremely different people. Foster was serious and reserved, while Allie was outgoing and amiable. They never lost their temper, but they had very different personalities.

#6

Foster graduated second in the class of 1908, with a degree in philosophy. His thesis, entitled The Theory of Judgment, won him a year’s scholarship at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he studied under the philosopher and Nobel laureate Henri Bergson.

#7

Foster’s ambition was to work at a prestigious law firm, and he applied to Sullivan Cromwell, one of the most prestigious firms in the country. His credentials were impressive, but the partners were unimpressed. They rarely hired anyone who had not graduated from an Ivy League law school.

#8

Sullivan Cromwell was a law firm that helped organize the development of modern capitalism. It helped create some of America’s greatest industrial, commercial, and financial enterprises.

#9

Allie’s first clients were investors in Brazilian railroads, Peruvian mines, and Cuban banks. He then traveled to Europe to promote the interests of other clients, including Merck Co. , the American Cotton Oil Company, and the Holland America Line.

#10

After returning from his trip around the world, Allie found his homeland much changed. America’s complacency had been shaken by the torpedoing of the liner Lusitania, which killed nearly 1,200 people, including 128 Americans.

#11

Allie’s first post was in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, in 1916. He was a secretary of embassy class five, and he and his colleague, Minister Frederic Penfield, represented the United States at the funeral of Emperor Franz Joseph. They could not have avoided the sense that an era was ending and a new one was about to dawn.

#12

Allie was transferred to Bern, Switzerland, in 1917, and spent his days and nights with a polyglot carousel of Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Albanian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Czech, Bulgarian, Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, German, and Russian plotters. He was a secret agent, and his life was full of unmentionable happenings.

#13

By 1917, John Foster was the secretary of state and had become the first great patron of the Dulles brothers. He subsidized