George F. Kennan
An American Life
Allen Lane
Hardback
: 01 Dec 2011
£30.00
Synopsis
In the late 1940s, George Kennan wrote two documents, the "Long Telegram" and the "X Article," which set forward the strategy of containment that would define U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next four decades. This achievement alone would qualify him as the most influential American diplomat of the Cold War era. But he was also an architect of the Marshall Plan, a prizewinning historian, and would become one of the most outspoken critics of American diplomacy, politics, and culture during the last half of the twentieth century. Now the full scope of Kennan's long life and vast influence is revealed by one of today's most important Cold War scholars.
Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis began this magisterial history almost thirty years ago, interviewing Kennan frequently and gaining complete access to his voluminous diaries and other personal papers. So frank and detailed were these materials that Kennan and Gaddis agreed that the book would not appear until after Kennan's death. It was well worth the wait: the journals give this book a breathtaking candor and intimacy that match its century- long sweep.
The result is a remarkably revealing view of how this greatest of Cold War strategists came to doubt his strategy and always doubted himself.
This is a landmark work of history and biography that reveals the vast influence and rich inner landscape of a life that both mirrored and shaped the century it spanned.
Table of contents
Preface
Part I
ONE: Childhood: 1904-1921
TWO: Princeton: 1921-1925
THREE: Marriage—and Moscow: 1931-1933
Part II
FIVE: The Origins of Soviet-American Relations: 1933-1936
SIX: Rediscovering America: 1936-1938
SEVEN: Czechoslovakia and Germany: 1938-1941
EIGHT: The United States at War: 1941-1944
NINE: Back in the U.S.S.R.: 1944-1945
TEN: A Very Long Telegram: 1945-1946
Part III
ELEVEN: A Grand Strategic Education: 1946
TWELVE: Mr. X: 1947
THIRTEEN: Policy Planner: 1947-1948
FOURTEEN: Policy Dissenter: 1948
FIFTEEN: Reprieve: 1949
SIXTEEN: Disengagement: 1950
Part IV
SEVENTEEN: Public Figure, Private Doubts: 1950-1951
EIGHTEEN: Mr. Ambassador: 1952
NINETEEN: Finding a Niche: 1953-1955
TWENTY: A Rare Possibility of Usefulness: 1955-1958
TWENTY-ONE: Kennedy and Yugoslavia: 1958-1963
Part V
TWENTY-TWO: Counter-Cultural Critic: 1963-1968
TWENTY-THREE: Prophet of the Apocalypse: 1968-1980
TWENTY-FOUR: A Precarious Vindication: 1980-1990
TWENTY-FIVE: Last Things: 1991-2005
EPILOGUE: Greatness
Acknolwdgments
Abbreviations to Notes and Bibliography
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Product details
Format :
Hardback
ISBN: 9781594203121
Size : 153 x 234mm
Pages : 800
Published : 01 Dec 2011
Publisher : Allen Lane
George F. Kennan
An American Life
£30.00
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