George F. Kennan

An American Life

De: John Lewis Gaddis

Narrado por: Malcolm Hilgartner

Pulitzer Prize, Biography/Autobiography, 2012

National Book Critics Circle Award, Biography, 2012

Drawing on extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his archives, an eminent scholar of the Cold War delivers a revelatory biography of its troubled mastermind.

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 US 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 20th 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 30 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.

We see Kennan’s insecurity as a Midwesterner among elites at Princeton, his budding dissatisfaction with authority and the status quo, his struggles with depression, his gift for satire, and his sharp insights on the policies and people he encountered. Kennan turned these sharp analytical gifts upon himself, even to the point of regularly recording dreams. 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.

©2011 John Lewis Gaddis (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Masterfully researched…. Gaddis’ moving work gives us a figure with whom, however one might differ on details, it was a privilege to be a contemporary." ( New York Times Book Review)

Intelligent and illuminating biography

John Lewis Gaddis has provided another intelligent, richly sourced, well written,and illuminating book, here the biography of George Kennan. A dense book, Malcolm Hilgartner enhances an appreciation and comprehension of the book if one desires to read the book while listening to the Audible. Hilgartner is clear and his performance is well modulated. This book deserved its accolades. Robust and generous, it is an exception biography of a brilliant and meaningful American.

Good if you're serious about foreign affairs

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This is a serious scholarly book. If you're in the mood for 40 hours of intellectual rigor this is an excellent book

Any additional comments?

The reader is v good except when he does awful English accents and awful imitations of women

Maybe the most important unfamous American

Wonderful bio of one of the 20th Century's most influential foreign policy analysts and writers.

Excellent book and very nice reading

This is a really important book by a great strategist and thinker of 20th century. I really enjoyed the book and it’s narration.

Excellent Biography Perfectly Read

This is the authorized biography of Kennan. It is both admiring and critical, as Kennan was about himself. Kennan’s own views of himself are available in his Diaries covering most of the 20th century as well as his two sets of Memoirs.

This is long and detailed as the subject merited. I’ve always thought that part of Kennan’s brilliance was his wonderful writing style that he applied to nearly everything he ever produced. The perfect (there is no other word for it) reading brings that style front and center in long passages read as one supposes Kennan would have read them.

I often wonder if anyone in foreign service now thinks in broad terms as did Kennan and his various colleagues and adversaries. Given the polarization of the world at the present moment, some larger view of the interests of various nations, with the great scope Kennan brought to his work, might help the current great powers from conflict.

Whether you agree or disagree with Kennan’s approach, this biography makes him a real person and shows both the positive and negative influences on his thinking.