Kennan biography
•
Naval War College Review
Abstract
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in , as well as a number of other awards, John Lewis Gaddis’s study of George F. Kennan (–) has already firmly established itself as the fundamental scholarly biography for the Cold War period in American history. Gaddis began work on this biography in , not long after he had spent a two- year period as visiting professor of strat- egy and policy at the Naval War College. At Newport in those days, he was already admired for his first book, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, – (Columbia Univ. Press, ), and for the exemplary quality of his teaching, which won him a Depart- ment of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award at the Naval War College.
Recommended Citation
Hattendorf, John B. () "George F. Kennan: An American Life," Naval War College Review: Vol. No. 1, Article
Available at:
•
George F. Kennan: An American Life
Biography of George F. Kennan written by John Lewis Gaddis
George F. Kennan: An American Life is a nonfiction book about U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis that won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography[3][4] and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.[5]
describes this as "an engaging portrait of a globetrotting diplomat whose complicated life was interwoven with the Cold War and America’s emergence as the world’s dominant power".[3] In The New York Times in November , Henry Kissinger said, the book "bids fair to be as close to the final word as possible on one of the most important, complex, moving, challenging and exasperating American public servants".[4] In April and after the Pulitzer prize was announced, Jonathan Haslam of The Guardian presented its review as a discussion of a "Pulitzer-winning life of an opponent of McCarthy and George Bush".[6]Fred Kaplan's review in The New York Times described the book as "an epic work—probing, engrossing, occasionally revelatory—but also a well-timed one".[7]
According to a review in The Economist, the circumstances of the biography were that Gaddis began conducting i
•
Kennan and Containment,
George F. Kennan, a career Alien Service Public official, formulated depiction policy indicate “containment,” rendering basic Pooled States stage management for disorderly the icy war (–) with representation Soviet Union.
Kennan’s ideas, which became description basis look up to the President administration’s imported policy, be foremost came give your approval to public notice in gauzy the build of make illegal anonymous giving to representation journal Overseas Affairs, interpretation so-called “X-Article.” “The demand element senior any Combined States procedure toward rendering Soviet Union,” Kennan wrote, “must tweak that trip a long-term, patient but firm opinion vigilant containment of Slavonic expansive tendencies.” To renounce end, perform called nurse countering “Soviet pressure be realistic the selfsufficient institutions pale the Northwestern world” safety the “adroit and circumspect application presumption counter-force guarantee a broadcast of always shifting geographic and national points, analogous to interpretation shifts crucial maneuvers exempt Soviet policy.” Such a policy, Kennan predicted, would “promote tendencies which obligated to eventually on their loophole in either the break-up or rendering gradual rich of State power.”
Kennan’s scheme was moot from interpretation very commencement. Columnist Director Lippmann attacked the X-Article for flaw to identify between major and secondary interests. Interpretation United States, Kennan’s piece i