Reviews

George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

paulgrostad's review against another edition

5.0

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. A comprehensive biography of Kennan, and very well written.

pbandgee's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

quisby's review against another edition

4.0

Excellent biography, although Kennan himself rubbed me the wrong way, principally because of the lengthy navel-gazing diary passages. He used excellent imagery and style but came off as irritatingly conceited. In spite of the fascinating times in which he lived, Kennan had a fundamentally dull career, except for some stints in Moscow.

ewynn610's review against another edition

1

ewbanh's review against another edition

4.0

Gaddis does an excellent job of bringing Kennan to life, and showing him as an infinitely complex and sensitive human being. Filled with Kennan's own writings and self-reflections (and criticisms), Gaddis' biography is empathetic towards its subject--though he does not hesitate to point out inconsistency and failures both public and private.

Well-researched and curated, I enjoyed the book immensely. I teared up at Kennan's passing, but I am not sure if it is because I was saddened by the man's death (at 101--no easy feat!) or if I would just miss the man's voice--after 800 pages it had become more familiar than my own.

irnerd87's review against another edition

5.0

Kennan: a man who needs to be studied
First of all, let me say I am thrilled to see this kind of book in audio, very seldom do we get a major scholarly work of this magnitude in audio. As a serious student of international relations, Kennan needs to be studied. for better or worse it was his thought process that served as the guiding light for American Foreign Policy until the end of the Cold War. The thing that changed was the interpretation of Kennan's ideas.

Being the owner of 1400 audiobooks I can comfortably say that the narrator is one of the best I have heard and perfect for a book of this size.

I will be the first to admit the audience who will truly appreciate this book among the general population is small but for the student of history and/or the international system this book is a must-read.

skitch41's review against another edition

5.0

With how large the Federal government has grown since the New Deal and World War II, it has become very rare for any bureaucrat working in that system to be able to make any kind of significant impact on policy without credit being taken by more senior officials or work being lost in the milieu of democratic and bureaucratic politics. George Kennan, with his years of service in Russia with the State Department's Foreign Service, his legendary Long Telegram and "Mr. X" article in Foreign Affairs , and his creation of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, is one of those few legendary figures. But Mr. Kennan could also be incredibly inconsistent and self-flagellating over the years, making it difficult to get at the heart of what he truly believed. Thus, any biography on Mr. Kennan would be difficult under the best circumstances. However, Mr. Gaddis does an impeccable job of weaving Mr. Kennan's life, career, writings, and thoughts together. But the best thing about this biography is that Mr. Gaddis never divorces Mr. Kennan from his historical and personal context. For example, Mr. Kennan was notoriously declared persona non grata as American Ambassador to the Soviet Union by the Kremlin in 1952 due to some incredibly bone-headed remarks he gave about life in Russia while visiting Berlin. Many of Kennan's contemporaries had no idea why he would say something so outrageous and others may have dismissed it as a public relations snafu. But Mr. Gaddis shows how Mr. Kennan's brief and frustrating tenure as ambassador opened the door for such remarks and how it was more where he said it than what he said that irritated the Kremlin. This is just one small example of how Mr. Gaddis weaves Mr. Kennan's life with the his historical & personal context. This is probably due to the fact that Mr. Gaddis had access to Mr. Kennan, his papers, diaries, letters, and family members for such a long period of time before the subject's death and the book's publication (He became Kennan's biographer in 1981, Kennan died in 2005, and this book was first published in 2011). One interesting oversight(?) though is in regards to Kennan's infidelities. It is clear from this book that one of Mr. Kennan's weaknesses was a wandering eye towards the opposite sex, a fact that Mr. Kennan flogged himself over throughout his life. And it does seem clear that Mr. Kennan had at least one affair, but Mr. Gaddis never goes into details about it, nor does he dig any deeper into other potential affairs Mr. Kennan might have had. In a day and age where there seems to be no shame about uncovering the intimate details about a person's life (ex. we now know Presidents Harding and Johnson had nicknames for their penises), this is rather unusual and, dare I say, refreshing. After all, not everything needs to be exposed to the light of day. In short, this is a fine biography that deftly weaves its way through the life, work, and thoughts of a most complicated, but important, public figure in American history.