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George Kennan: A Study of Character
A man of impressive mental powers, of extraordinary intellectual range, and—last but not least—of exceptional integrity, George Frost Kennan (1904-2005) was an adviser to presidents and secretaries of state, with a decisive role in the history of this country (and of the entire world) for a few crucial years in the 1940s, after which he was made to retire; but then he became a scholar who wrote seventeen books, scores of essays and articles, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir. He also wrote remarkable public lectures and many thousands of incisive letters, laying down his pen only in the hundredth year of his life.
Having risen within the American Foreign Service and been posted to various European capitals, and twice to Moscow, Kennan was called back to Washington in 1946, where he helped to inspire the Truman Doctrine and draft the Marshall Plan. Among other things, he wrote the “X” or “Containment” article for which he became, and still is, world famous (an article which he regarded as not very important and liable to misreading). John Lukacs describes the development and the essence of Kennan’s thinking; the—perhaps unavoidable—misinterpretations of his advocacies; his self-imposed task as a leading realist critic during the Cold War; and the importance of his work as a historian during the second half of his long life.
Having risen within the American Foreign Service and been posted to various European capitals, and twice to Moscow, Kennan was called back to Washington in 1946, where he helped to inspire the Truman Doctrine and draft the Marshall Plan. Among other things, he wrote the “X” or “Containment” article for which he became, and still is, world famous (an article which he regarded as not very important and liable to misreading). John Lukacs describes the development and the essence of Kennan’s thinking; the—perhaps unavoidable—misinterpretations of his advocacies; his self-imposed task as a leading realist critic during the Cold War; and the importance of his work as a historian during the second half of his long life.
- GenresBiography
224 pages, Hardcover
First published April 24, 2007
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About the author
John Lukacs
63 books116 followersLukacs was born in Budapest to a Roman Catholic father and Jewish mother. His parents divorced before the Second World War. During the Second World War he was forced to serve in a Hungarian labour battalion for Jews. During the German occupation of Hungary in 1944-45 he evaded deportation to the death camps, and survived the siege of Budapest. In 1946, as it became clear that Hungary was going to be a repressive Communist regime, he fled to the United States. In the early 1950s however, Lukacs wrote several articles in Commonweal criticizing the approach taken by Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom he described as a vulgar demagogue.[1]
Lukacs sees populism as the greatest threat to civilization. By his own description, he considers himself to be a reactionary. He claims that populism is the essence of both National Socialism and Communism. He denies that there is such a thing as generic fascism, noting for example that the differences between the political regimes of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are greater than their similarities.[2]
A major theme in Lukacs's writing is his agreement with the assertion by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville that aristocratic elites have been replaced by democratic elites, which obtain power via an appeal to the masses. In his 2002 book, At the End of an Age, Lukacs argued that the modern/bourgeois age, which began around the time of the Renaissance, is coming to an end.[3] The rise of populism and the decline of elitism is the theme of his experimental work, A Thread of Years (1998), a series of vignettes set in each year of the 20th century from 1900 to 1998, tracing the abandonment of gentlemanly conduct and the rise of vulgarity in American culture. Lukacs defends traditional Western civilization against what he sees as the leveling and debasing effects of mass culture.
By his own admission a dedicated Anglophile, Lukacs’s favorite historical figure is Winston Churchill, whom he considers to be the greatest statesman of the 20th century, and the savior of not only Great Britain, but also of Western civilization. A recurring theme in his writing is the duel between Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler for mastery of the world. The struggle between them, whom Lukacs sees as the archetypical reactionary and the archetypical revolutionary, is the major theme of The Last European War (1976), The Duel (1991), Five Days in London (1999) and 2008's Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat, a book about Churchill’s first major speech as Prime Minister. Lukacs argues that Great Britain (and by extension the British Empire) could not defeat Germany by itself, winning required the entry of the United States and the Soviet Union, but he contends that Churchill, by ensuring that Germany failed to win the war in 1940, laid the groundwork for an Allied victory.
Lukacs holds strong isolationist beliefs, and unusually for an anti-Communist émigré, "airs surprisingly critical views of the Cold War from a unique conservative perspective."[4] Lukacs claims that the Soviet Union was a feeble power on the verge of collapse, and contended that the Cold War was an unnecessary waste of American treasure and life. Likewise, Lukacs has also condemned the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In his 1997 book, George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946, a collection of letters between Lukacs and his close friend George F. Kennan exchanged in 1994-1995, Lukacs and Kennan criticized the New Left claim that the Cold War was caused by the United States. Lukacs argued however that although it was Joseph Stalin who was largely responsible for the beginning of the Cold War, the administration of Dwight Eisenhower missed a chance for ending the Cold War in 1953 after Stalin's death, and as a consequence the Cold War went on for many more decades.
Lukacs sees populism as the greatest threat to civilization. By his own description, he considers himself to be a reactionary. He claims that populism is the essence of both National Socialism and Communism. He denies that there is such a thing as generic fascism, noting for example that the differences between the political regimes of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are greater than their similarities.[2]
A major theme in Lukacs's writing is his agreement with the assertion by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville that aristocratic elites have been replaced by democratic elites, which obtain power via an appeal to the masses. In his 2002 book, At the End of an Age, Lukacs argued that the modern/bourgeois age, which began around the time of the Renaissance, is coming to an end.[3] The rise of populism and the decline of elitism is the theme of his experimental work, A Thread of Years (1998), a series of vignettes set in each year of the 20th century from 1900 to 1998, tracing the abandonment of gentlemanly conduct and the rise of vulgarity in American culture. Lukacs defends traditional Western civilization against what he sees as the leveling and debasing effects of mass culture.
By his own admission a dedicated Anglophile, Lukacs’s favorite historical figure is Winston Churchill, whom he considers to be the greatest statesman of the 20th century, and the savior of not only Great Britain, but also of Western civilization. A recurring theme in his writing is the duel between Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler for mastery of the world. The struggle between them, whom Lukacs sees as the archetypical reactionary and the archetypical revolutionary, is the major theme of The Last European War (1976), The Duel (1991), Five Days in London (1999) and 2008's Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat, a book about Churchill’s first major speech as Prime Minister. Lukacs argues that Great Britain (and by extension the British Empire) could not defeat Germany by itself, winning required the entry of the United States and the Soviet Union, but he contends that Churchill, by ensuring that Germany failed to win the war in 1940, laid the groundwork for an Allied victory.
Lukacs holds strong isolationist beliefs, and unusually for an anti-Communist émigré, "airs surprisingly critical views of the Cold War from a unique conservative perspective."[4] Lukacs claims that the Soviet Union was a feeble power on the verge of collapse, and contended that the Cold War was an unnecessary waste of American treasure and life. Likewise, Lukacs has also condemned the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In his 1997 book, George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946, a collection of letters between Lukacs and his close friend George F. Kennan exchanged in 1994-1995, Lukacs and Kennan criticized the New Left claim that the Cold War was caused by the United States. Lukacs argued however that although it was Joseph Stalin who was largely responsible for the beginning of the Cold War, the administration of Dwight Eisenhower missed a chance for ending the Cold War in 1953 after Stalin's death, and as a consequence the Cold War went on for many more decades.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 12, 2018
George Kennan was an American original. He lived a long life, from 1904 to 2005, and was active until his 100th year! He wrote prodigiously and the author mentioned the problems he encountered in dealing with the mountains of written output that George Kennan produced.
George Kennan, aside from the English language, was fluent in German, Russian and French. He spent much of his life living outside the United States. He served in embassies in Germany and the Soviet Union during the critical years surrounding World War II. He warned the U.S. repeatedly of the Soviet Union, particularly of its aspirations to dominate Eastern Europe. He also felt that the Soviet Union was more of a Russian Empire than a Communist one.
On the U.S. side he never felt that his country was pre-ordained by destiny to set a democratic example to the world. He did not want it to expand militarily to other countries. He did not believe that the United States was an original country selected by God. Although he was anti-communist he became concerned in the 1950’s with the growing anti-communist crusade.
The author, John Lukacs, is given to purple prose and elongated lavish sentences. He is very opinionated. I did find him overly fawning on his subject. It would seem that everything that Kennan wrote was a gem. But fortunately this is a short biography of 200 pages.
I got the impression that both author and subject are highbrow. George Kennan had a Cassandra complex.
Nevertheless there are some useful insights.
Page 197(my book); speech of George Kennan at the University of Notre Dame in 1953
I detect [in the United States] a conscious rejection of intellectual effort and distinction. They come together here with a deep-seated weakness in the American character: a certain shy sub-consciousness that tends to deny interests other than those of business, sports, or war. There is a powerful cast of mind that has little use for the artist or the writer, and professes to see in the pursuits of such people a lack of virility...The bearers of this neo-materialism seem, indeed, to have a strange self-consciousness about the subject of virility – a strange need to emphasize and demonstrate it by exhibitions of taciturnity, callousness, and physical aggressiveness... What is it that makes us fear to acknowledge the greatness of other lands, to shun the subtle and unfamiliar? What is it that causes us to huddle together, herdlike in tastes and enthusiasms that represent only the common denominator of popular acquiescence?
George Kennan, aside from the English language, was fluent in German, Russian and French. He spent much of his life living outside the United States. He served in embassies in Germany and the Soviet Union during the critical years surrounding World War II. He warned the U.S. repeatedly of the Soviet Union, particularly of its aspirations to dominate Eastern Europe. He also felt that the Soviet Union was more of a Russian Empire than a Communist one.
On the U.S. side he never felt that his country was pre-ordained by destiny to set a democratic example to the world. He did not want it to expand militarily to other countries. He did not believe that the United States was an original country selected by God. Although he was anti-communist he became concerned in the 1950’s with the growing anti-communist crusade.
The author, John Lukacs, is given to purple prose and elongated lavish sentences. He is very opinionated. I did find him overly fawning on his subject. It would seem that everything that Kennan wrote was a gem. But fortunately this is a short biography of 200 pages.
I got the impression that both author and subject are highbrow. George Kennan had a Cassandra complex.
Nevertheless there are some useful insights.
Page 197(my book); speech of George Kennan at the University of Notre Dame in 1953
I detect [in the United States] a conscious rejection of intellectual effort and distinction. They come together here with a deep-seated weakness in the American character: a certain shy sub-consciousness that tends to deny interests other than those of business, sports, or war. There is a powerful cast of mind that has little use for the artist or the writer, and professes to see in the pursuits of such people a lack of virility...The bearers of this neo-materialism seem, indeed, to have a strange self-consciousness about the subject of virility – a strange need to emphasize and demonstrate it by exhibitions of taciturnity, callousness, and physical aggressiveness... What is it that makes us fear to acknowledge the greatness of other lands, to shun the subtle and unfamiliar? What is it that causes us to huddle together, herdlike in tastes and enthusiasms that represent only the common denominator of popular acquiescence?
September 13, 2012
John Lukacs calls "George Kennan: A Study of Character" (Yale University Press, 224 pages, $26) a "biographical study," noting that a full-fledged biography has yet to be written. Mr. Lukacs ranks Kennan above Henry Adams as a historian and autobiographer and above Ernest Hemingway as a writer about Europe. Kennan emerges, toward the end of this impassioned work, as the conscience of his country.
Although Kennan (1904–2005) is best known as the author of the famous "X" article in Foreign Affairs that formed the basis of America's Cold War "containment" policy, his diaries alone (spanning more than 70 years) have no equal, Mr. Lukacs suggests, as American writing that recaptures history in the making, especially in Germany, where Kennan, a foreign service officer, was stationed in 1927, 1928–1931, and 1939–1941.
Profound respect for Kennan the man and the writer is writ large on every page of this crystalline book, which is a kind of throwback to the 18th century, when the term "character" meant a good deal more than it does today. Life may be unpredictable and ever changing, but character "changes hardly or not at all," Mr. Lukacs asserts. "And by ‘character' I mean his conscious decisions, choices, acts and words, but nothing of his — so-called — subconscious; that is, no attribution of psychoanalytic categories, no ham-handed projections or propositions of secret or hidden motives."
Mr. Kennan's character consisted of certain lifelong principles: Liberal democracies should be viewed with as much concern as dictatorships; the major defining event of the 20th century was World War I, not the Russian Revolution; diplomacy is nearly always a better course of action than intervening in the internal affairs of other nations.
What were the practical consequences of Mr. Kennan's principles? He objected, for example, to much of what passed for American anti-Communism because it was hysterical and ignorant. Stalin should be viewed as a Russian tyrant who had certain national goals, not as an international revolutionary who wanted to take over the world. When Kennan argued that Soviet communism had to be contained, he viewed the USSR as pursuing tsarist goals: dominating Eastern and Central Europe. In the long run — as Kennan predicted as early as the 1940s — the Soviets would not be able to hold onto Eastern Europe, let alone the rest of the world. So much of the American anti-communist talk was puerile, he concluded, especially when coupled with "national self-adulation."
Kennan supported the Korean War because he felt the North Koreans had to be pushed back to the 38th parallel. But he opposed the war in Vietnam, and though Mr. Lukacs does not say much about Kennan's view of later wars, especially the current one in Iraq, to divine Kennan's attitude is not difficult. He called our current president "profoundly superficial," a judgment Mr. Lukacs tacitly affirms when he quotes John Adams: "We are friends of liberty all over the world; but we do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Mr. Lukacs also admires another Kennan zinger about the "curious law which so often makes Americans, inveterately conservative at home, the partisans of radical change everywhere else."
Mr. Lukacs venerates Kennan, but he also faults him, noting that Kennan was spectacularly wrong when he argued America and Britain should not ally themselves with Stalin after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Similarly, Kennan's "distaste for democracy," Mr. Lukacs points out, is a "problem that his biographers must not dismiss or ignore." Indeed, Kennan's disdain for this country's domestic politics surely is one reason many of his prescient views went unheeded. Mr. Lukacs never makes that connection. He notes, instead, how tireless Kennan was as a writer and public speaker and how so many of his books and articles have stood the test of time.
Why then have they not received the attention Mr. Lukacs believes they deserve? In my view, Kennan was constitutionally unfit to submit himself to the daily grind of politics, where he might have been able to slowly and painfully shift the thinking of decision makers his way. How could he cajole congressmen when he had nothing but contempt for most of them? He derided Dean Acheson for overselling the Cold War, but Acheson understood that he could not hold himself above politics.
Was Kennan's estrangement from domestic politics a failure of character? This is a question I wish Mr. Lukacs had addressed. Or is it a matter of — dare I mention the vile word? — psychology? Surely Kennan's biographers will need to probe precisely that sensitive point: that node where character and personality intersect.
Although Kennan (1904–2005) is best known as the author of the famous "X" article in Foreign Affairs that formed the basis of America's Cold War "containment" policy, his diaries alone (spanning more than 70 years) have no equal, Mr. Lukacs suggests, as American writing that recaptures history in the making, especially in Germany, where Kennan, a foreign service officer, was stationed in 1927, 1928–1931, and 1939–1941.
Profound respect for Kennan the man and the writer is writ large on every page of this crystalline book, which is a kind of throwback to the 18th century, when the term "character" meant a good deal more than it does today. Life may be unpredictable and ever changing, but character "changes hardly or not at all," Mr. Lukacs asserts. "And by ‘character' I mean his conscious decisions, choices, acts and words, but nothing of his — so-called — subconscious; that is, no attribution of psychoanalytic categories, no ham-handed projections or propositions of secret or hidden motives."
Mr. Kennan's character consisted of certain lifelong principles: Liberal democracies should be viewed with as much concern as dictatorships; the major defining event of the 20th century was World War I, not the Russian Revolution; diplomacy is nearly always a better course of action than intervening in the internal affairs of other nations.
What were the practical consequences of Mr. Kennan's principles? He objected, for example, to much of what passed for American anti-Communism because it was hysterical and ignorant. Stalin should be viewed as a Russian tyrant who had certain national goals, not as an international revolutionary who wanted to take over the world. When Kennan argued that Soviet communism had to be contained, he viewed the USSR as pursuing tsarist goals: dominating Eastern and Central Europe. In the long run — as Kennan predicted as early as the 1940s — the Soviets would not be able to hold onto Eastern Europe, let alone the rest of the world. So much of the American anti-communist talk was puerile, he concluded, especially when coupled with "national self-adulation."
Kennan supported the Korean War because he felt the North Koreans had to be pushed back to the 38th parallel. But he opposed the war in Vietnam, and though Mr. Lukacs does not say much about Kennan's view of later wars, especially the current one in Iraq, to divine Kennan's attitude is not difficult. He called our current president "profoundly superficial," a judgment Mr. Lukacs tacitly affirms when he quotes John Adams: "We are friends of liberty all over the world; but we do not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Mr. Lukacs also admires another Kennan zinger about the "curious law which so often makes Americans, inveterately conservative at home, the partisans of radical change everywhere else."
Mr. Lukacs venerates Kennan, but he also faults him, noting that Kennan was spectacularly wrong when he argued America and Britain should not ally themselves with Stalin after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Similarly, Kennan's "distaste for democracy," Mr. Lukacs points out, is a "problem that his biographers must not dismiss or ignore." Indeed, Kennan's disdain for this country's domestic politics surely is one reason many of his prescient views went unheeded. Mr. Lukacs never makes that connection. He notes, instead, how tireless Kennan was as a writer and public speaker and how so many of his books and articles have stood the test of time.
Why then have they not received the attention Mr. Lukacs believes they deserve? In my view, Kennan was constitutionally unfit to submit himself to the daily grind of politics, where he might have been able to slowly and painfully shift the thinking of decision makers his way. How could he cajole congressmen when he had nothing but contempt for most of them? He derided Dean Acheson for overselling the Cold War, but Acheson understood that he could not hold himself above politics.
Was Kennan's estrangement from domestic politics a failure of character? This is a question I wish Mr. Lukacs had addressed. Or is it a matter of — dare I mention the vile word? — psychology? Surely Kennan's biographers will need to probe precisely that sensitive point: that node where character and personality intersect.
July 10, 2017
This was a great little book, full of beautiful and carefully crafted sentences. The writing is pointed, direct, and clear. Kennan of course was a fascinating and complex figure (also a great writer) and capable of deep insights into the complex geo-political climate, particularly with regards to Russia.
The narrative deftly shows how briefly Kennan was in synch with the ruling establishment of DC and how that brief moment of synchronization, coupled with his typical deep insights, made his reputation. However, the narrative highlights how it was not the ideas themselves which made his reputation (in fact, Kennan had been saying similar things years before and had critiques about his formulations just a few years later) but rather, the basic fact of synchronization. In so many ways, life is about luck and timing, and Kennan's moment in the sun regarding containment is a great example.
However, this book is well worth the time; and for aspiring writers, a great illustration of how to write with brevity regarding complex and multifaceted topics.
The narrative deftly shows how briefly Kennan was in synch with the ruling establishment of DC and how that brief moment of synchronization, coupled with his typical deep insights, made his reputation. However, the narrative highlights how it was not the ideas themselves which made his reputation (in fact, Kennan had been saying similar things years before and had critiques about his formulations just a few years later) but rather, the basic fact of synchronization. In so many ways, life is about luck and timing, and Kennan's moment in the sun regarding containment is a great example.
However, this book is well worth the time; and for aspiring writers, a great illustration of how to write with brevity regarding complex and multifaceted topics.
January 15, 2020
Lukacs, a friend of George Kennan, goes into the personal factors that made Kennan a significant, if often difficult, figure in American diplomatic history. From 1925-53, Kennan was a diplomat and Russian expert in the State Department. His influence peaked from 1946-49, during those years he wrote the "Long Telegram" warning of Soviet aggression after WW II, the "Citizen X" article which popularized the containment policy,and helped plan the Marshall Program. After that his role in foreign policy declined, although he advised Secretary of State Acheson during the Korean War and was briefly ambassador to the USSR. When John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State, Kennan was eased out. He took a position at Princeton. except for two years as Ambassador to Yugoslavia in 1961-63, he was a private citizen. He wrote and lectured for over fifty years,Lukacs praises his lucidity of his writing and speaking. he died in 2004 at the age of 101, still cogent until nearly the end. He had respect among scholars and statesmen in the US and abroad, including Mikael Gorbachev, but little influence.
Why is the basis of Lukacs' book. He points out that Kennan was a man of high principle and unflinching integrity. This was a source of friction with his superiors and his political masters. Specifically, at the end of WW II, Kennan thought Americans were naïve about continuing the alliance with Stalin and the USSR. However, he based this not on concern over Communism but on Russian history. Nationalism was the strongest motivation in history. Lukacs quotes another writer who referred to Stalin as "the peasant tsar". Kennan was a realist, he saw that in dealing with the Russians, it was as JFK would say, " never to negotiate out of fear. but never be afraid to negotiate". Kennan was appalled by the wave of anti-communism in the US, an ideology itself, which made it impossible to make reasonable decisions. This made him persona non grata to Republicans. Kennan admitted he made a mistake in not emphasizing that he intended political rather than military confrontation. He saw the division of Germany to be a bad idea, he thought a unified, unarmed and neutral Germany would provide a buffer between East and West He also opposed interventionism, he opposed Viet Nam and the post Cold War expansion of NATO. At the end of his life he was critical of the Iraq War.
Obviously Kennan was a contrarian to most of American foreign policy in the second half of the 29th century.
Kennan's worldview was out of sync with his time. He referred to Bismarck as a man of the 18t century, it seems to me that Kennan was a man of the 19th century. He called the 20th century a short century, extending, in reality, from 1914 to 1989. WW I was the greatest disaster as it disrupted the stability of Europe and the US and led to WW II and the Cold War. I get the sense from Lukacs that Kennan longed for that ante bellum world. He disliked much of modern American life, TV, advertising, pornography and air travel. He distrusted mass democracy, because of domestic political pressures it was impossible for the US to have a coherent, much less consistent foreign policy. Kennan's viewpoints in the 1930's on race and immigration , although later regretted, were in line with rabble rousers like Father Coughlin and Gerald LK Smith. (Kennan was a compulsive writer, his diaries and private letters may have expressed temporary frustrations.) He was certainly an introvert. Lukacs, from his own experience, describes Kennan as a good and loyal friend to a small circle. He was a faithful husband and father, Kennan and his wife, Annalise, were married for over seventy years.
Kennan was a patriot, but not a blind one. He loved Russia and Europe, but was never completely comfortable there. He was born and raised in Milwaukee, went to Princeton, lived abroad and eventually made his home in New Jersey. His family originally came from Scotland and immigrated first to New England, his wife was Norwegian. But he felt that he was a Midwesterner, with all that entailed. Kennan especially admired the Norwegians and Swiss. Just what would be expected by a son of the upper Midwest.
Why is the basis of Lukacs' book. He points out that Kennan was a man of high principle and unflinching integrity. This was a source of friction with his superiors and his political masters. Specifically, at the end of WW II, Kennan thought Americans were naïve about continuing the alliance with Stalin and the USSR. However, he based this not on concern over Communism but on Russian history. Nationalism was the strongest motivation in history. Lukacs quotes another writer who referred to Stalin as "the peasant tsar". Kennan was a realist, he saw that in dealing with the Russians, it was as JFK would say, " never to negotiate out of fear. but never be afraid to negotiate". Kennan was appalled by the wave of anti-communism in the US, an ideology itself, which made it impossible to make reasonable decisions. This made him persona non grata to Republicans. Kennan admitted he made a mistake in not emphasizing that he intended political rather than military confrontation. He saw the division of Germany to be a bad idea, he thought a unified, unarmed and neutral Germany would provide a buffer between East and West He also opposed interventionism, he opposed Viet Nam and the post Cold War expansion of NATO. At the end of his life he was critical of the Iraq War.
Obviously Kennan was a contrarian to most of American foreign policy in the second half of the 29th century.
Kennan's worldview was out of sync with his time. He referred to Bismarck as a man of the 18t century, it seems to me that Kennan was a man of the 19th century. He called the 20th century a short century, extending, in reality, from 1914 to 1989. WW I was the greatest disaster as it disrupted the stability of Europe and the US and led to WW II and the Cold War. I get the sense from Lukacs that Kennan longed for that ante bellum world. He disliked much of modern American life, TV, advertising, pornography and air travel. He distrusted mass democracy, because of domestic political pressures it was impossible for the US to have a coherent, much less consistent foreign policy. Kennan's viewpoints in the 1930's on race and immigration , although later regretted, were in line with rabble rousers like Father Coughlin and Gerald LK Smith. (Kennan was a compulsive writer, his diaries and private letters may have expressed temporary frustrations.) He was certainly an introvert. Lukacs, from his own experience, describes Kennan as a good and loyal friend to a small circle. He was a faithful husband and father, Kennan and his wife, Annalise, were married for over seventy years.
Kennan was a patriot, but not a blind one. He loved Russia and Europe, but was never completely comfortable there. He was born and raised in Milwaukee, went to Princeton, lived abroad and eventually made his home in New Jersey. His family originally came from Scotland and immigrated first to New England, his wife was Norwegian. But he felt that he was a Midwesterner, with all that entailed. Kennan especially admired the Norwegians and Swiss. Just what would be expected by a son of the upper Midwest.
July 31, 2012
This was a short book about Kennan by a distinguished historian. It is not a full biography, a point made clearly by the author. The book is well written and brings together a number of aspects of Kennan of which I was aware, along with some additional detail for his later career. While I liked the book overall, I was left watching the market closely for the appearance of the Gaddis biography, which did not appear until 2011. To a junkie for 20th century political and diplomatic history, this is a good book, though IMHO it is dominated by the Hawk and the Dove about Kennan and Nitze, as well as by the wonderful Gaddis biography.
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August 1, 2013'In his Study of Character, Lukacs himself has not attempted to give us a complete lexicon of Kennan’s life; instead he has provided in this short book a Rosetta Stone with which to decipher the true character of the man and his thought amid the litter of slogans and hype that muddies public discourse.'
Read the full review, "An American For All Seasons," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
Read the full review, "An American For All Seasons," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
October 27, 2010
a cursory investigation of kennan's character, really a hagiography. lukacs writes with great pretension while managing to inform us about kennan to the extent that a good wikipedia article would. furthermore, the book fairly drips with his affection for kennan. all in all, a disappointment.
September 4, 2014
Yes, it verges on hagiography but it's hard to argue that it's not well-deserved. And any work by Lukacs is a treat. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the ideas of Kennan or with a more general interest in 20th century American foreign policy.
December 22, 2018
The author, a friend of Kennan, was perhaps biased? Idolatrous? And thought Kennan almost a God?
I did, however, finish the mini bio with a better understanding of Kennan who was a force, a voice that was needed, indeed needed today.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews