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Books

I used to like George Kennan. Then I read his diaries

A review of The Kennan Diaries, edited by Frank Costiliogla. Has America ever produced a nastier, more snobbish bore?

1 March 2014

9:00 AM

1 March 2014

9:00 AM

The Kennan Diaries Frank Costiliogla (ed)

W.W. Norton, pp.688, £28, ISBN: 9780393073270

George Kennan, the career diplomat and historian best known for his sensible suggestion that the United States try to resist the Soviet Union ‘without recourse to any general military conflict’, is much in vogue these days, at least in Washington, where Senator Rand Paul is presenting Kennan’s theory of ‘containment’ as an alternative to George W.

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