George F. Kennan – författare

For more than fifty years, George F. Kennan's "American Diplomacy" has been a standard work on American foreign policy. Drawing on his considerable diplomatic experience and expertise, Kennan offers an overview and critique of the foreign policy of an emerging great power whose claims to rightness often spill over into self-righteousness, whose ambitions conflict with power realities, whose judgmentalism precludes the interests of other states, and whose domestic politics frequently prevent prudent policies and result in overstretch. Keenly aware of the dangers of military intervention and the negative effects of domestic politics on foreign policy, Kennan identifies troubling inconsistencies in the areas between actions and ideals - even when the strategies in question turned out to be decided successes. In this expanded fiftieth-anniversary edition, a substantial new introduction by John J. Mearsheimer, one of America's leading political realists, provides new understandings of Kennan's work and explores its continued resonance.As America grapples with its new role as one power among many - rather than as the "indispensable nation" that sees "further into the future" - Kennan's perceptive analysis of the past is all the more relevant. Today, as then, the pressing issue of how to wield power with prudence and responsibility remains, and Kennan's cautions about the cost of hubris are still timely. Refreshingly candid, "American Diplomacy" cuts to the heart of policy issues that continue to be hotly debated today.

Setting out to examine the world context within which American foreign policy must function, Mr. Kennan faces the hard facts of Soviet expansion, the ambiguous and often chaotic forces in the non-communist world, and the enormous difficulty of maintaining a posture of dignity and restraint in our foreign affairs. He warns against the dangers of relying on rigid military solutions, of over-estimating the capacities of the United Nations and other international peace-keeping institutions, and, in general, of looking at international life as a mechanistic rather than an organic process. It is in the inner development of our national life that he believes we can find solutions to our external problems, for American foreign policy will take its shape from the goals of American society.

Accompany George Kennan as he explores his family's roots in the American past.George F. Kennan has forged one of the most illustrious careers in the annals of American letters and politics. His prophetic American Diplomacy influenced several generations of Cold War policy makers, and Sketches from a Life, one of the most lyrical accounts of a life in public service ever written, chronicled his extraordinary diplomatic career spanning more than half a century. As a consummate statesman and prolific writer, Kennan has distinguished himself as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century.Now in his late nineties, Kennan turns an eye to a matter closer to his heart in An American Family: The Kennans. Embarking on a genealogical journey spanning several decades, he traces the roots of the Kennan family back more than five generations, discovering a family history that has all the makings of a classic American story. Beginning with the Kennans' life of unmitigated poverty in Scotland in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, An American Family details the Kennan family's passage to America and the hardships they faced as early settlers in Connecticut and Massachusetts, "the epitome of the backcountry family of the most remote northern fringes of New England life." He adroitly captures life in colonial times and in the period following the Revolutionary War, and chronicles the major events of a nation's early history with the rare intimacy of a family member reflecting on his forebears.Filled with lively and sometimes haunting vignettes collected from archives and libraries across New England, An American Family is a fascinating detective story and brings to fruition a family memoir begun by Kennan's grandfather nearly a century ago. Graceful yet revealing, it is a cherished reminder of three hundred years of a nation's history through the eyes and words of one of America's most remarkable sons.

On a hot July afternoon in 1953, George F. Kennan descended the steps of the State Department building as a newly retired man. His career had been tumultuous: early postings in eastern Europe followed by Berlin in 1940–41 and Moscow in the last year of World War II. In 1946, the forty-two-year-old Kennan authored the “Long Telegram,” a 5,500-word indictment of the Kremlin that became mandatory reading in Washington. A year later, in an article in Foreign Affairs, he outlined “containment,” America’s guiding strategy in the Cold War. Yet what should have been the pinnacle of his career—an ambassadorship in Moscow in 1952—was sabotaged by Kennan himself, deeply frustrated at his failure to ease the Cold War that he had helped launch.Yet, if it wasn’t the pinnacle, neither was it the capstone; over the next fifty years, Kennan would become the most respected foreign policy thinker of the twentieth century, giving influential lectures, advising presidents, and authoring twenty books, winning two Pulitzer prizes and two National Book awards in the process.Through it all, Kennan kept a diary. Spanning a staggering eighty-eight years and totaling over 8,000 pages, his journals brim with keen political and moral insights, philosophical ruminations, poetry, and vivid descriptions. In these pages, we see Kennan rambling through 1920s Europe as a college student, despairing for capitalism in the midst of the Depression, agonizing over the dilemmas of sex and marriage, becoming enchanted and then horrified by Soviet Russia, and developing into America’s foremost Soviet analyst. But it is the second half of this near-century-long record—the blossoming of Kennan the gifted author, wise counselor, and biting critic of the Vietnam and Iraq wars—that showcases this remarkable man at the height of his singular analytic and expressive powers, before giving way, heartbreakingly, to some of his most human moments, as his energy, memory, and finally his ability to write fade away.Masterfully selected and annotated by historian Frank Costigliola, the result is a landmark work of profound intellectual and emotional power. These diaries tell the complete narrative of Kennan’s life in his own intimate and unflinching words and, through him, the arc of world events in the twentieth century.

The troubled days in Russia during World War I, from the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 to Russia’s final departure from the war after the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in March 1918, are the setting of this absorbing historical narrative by one of the most distinguished diplomats and historians of our time.

In 1918 the United States government decided to involve itself with the Russian Revolution by sending troops to Siberia. This book recreates that unhappily memorable story—the arrival of British marines at Murmansk, the diplomatic maneuvering, the growing Russian hostility, the uprising of the Czechoslovak troops in central Siberia which threatened to overturn the Bolsheviks, the acquisitive ambitions of the Japanese in Manchuria, and finally the decision by President Woodrow Wilson to intervene with American troops.

"I have attempted to take the high ground,” writes George F. Kennan in the foreword to this illuminating work, "trying to stick to the broader dimensions of things—the ones that would still be visible and significant in future decades." Against the background of a century of wars, revolution, and uneasy peace, Mr. Kennan advances his thoughts on a broad front: how the individual's quest for power can transform a government into a confusion of ambition, rivalry, and suspicion; how a nation's size can create barriers between the rulers and the ruled; why America must first set its own house in order before it can become a beacon to others. Deeply aware of the pressures under which public officials must act, Mr. Kennan sees a government in Washington that is forced to make decisions on issues of the moment, often without regard for long-term consequences. Neither the legislature, responsive to the interests of a narrow constituency, nor the executive branch, swamped by urgent problems at home and abroad, has the time or inclination to look far beyond the next election. Lost entirely is a vital element in any democracy: deliberation based upon study, review, and judgment. To address problems that defy quick political solutions, Mr. Kennan here boldly lays down a blueprint for a Council of State, a nonpolitical, permanent advisory board that would stand alongside yet apart from government policy makers, with the prestige to be heard "above the cacophony of political ambitions." Rich in historical example, this volume is a brilliant summing up of the experience and thought of the man the Atlantic described in a cover story entitled "The Last Wise Man" as: "diplomat, scholar, writer of rare literary gifts, one of most remarkable Americans of this century."

As participant and observer, George F. Kennan has left an indelible mark on more than six decades of this century. In this new volume of essays, reviews, and speeches, Kennan reflects on the forces that have shaped this tragic century.

Beginning with his first foreign service post in 1927 and ending seven decades later, Kennan's account is rich with the insight of a major historical participant. Whether relating the perils of Hitler's Germany or revisiting Kennan's days as ambassador to the Soviet Union, Sketches from a Life is as riveting as great literature, and one of the most invaluable documents of our time.

First published in 1979. We associate Professor Kennan, with what came to be known as a doctrine of containment, the first serious theoretical attempt within the American foreign policy establishment to understand the consequences for world affairs of a suddenly substantial and quite visible Soviet power. This collection of debates includes an opening conversation between Kennan and George Urban.

First published in 1979. We associate Professor Kennan, with what came to be known as a doctrine of containment, the first serious theoretical attempt within the American foreign policy establishment to understand the consequences for world affairs of a suddenly substantial and quite visible Soviet power. This collection of debates includes an opening conversation between Kennan and George Urban.