George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy - Hardcover

Mayers, David Allan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195051394 ISBN 13: 9780195051391

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1988

Synopsis

This political-intellectual biography is the first to consider the thought of George Frost Kennan in the context of his many years of government service and subsequent political counsel. Drawing on in-depth and original research in a variety of archival collections, Mayers presents a comprehensive, critical review of Kennan's participation in foreign policy--from fledgling diplomat in Moscow in 1933 to respected critic on the sidelines. Stressing throughout the various intellectual and political sources of Kennan's analyses and recommendations, Mayers first details Kennan's early career, the formation of his personality, and intellectual influences through the end of World War II. He then analyzes the important period from 1946 to 1950, when Kennan was acknowledged as the American government's chief expert on Soviet affairs and held a high level place in the day-to-day formulation of foreign policy. Finally, Mayers discusses Kennan's record after his retirement as a critic of America's external policy, particularly his support of a policy of sensible détente and nuclear arms limitation as the only alternative to global destruction. The most exhaustive account to date of a towering figure in American postwar foreign policy, diplomacy, and intellectual history, this book will attract a wide readership among students, scholars, and general readers.

About this title

About the Author

David Mayers is Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston University. He is the author of Cracking the Monolith: U.S. Policy Against the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-55 and co-editor of Reevaluating Eisenhower: American Foreign Policy in the 1950s.

Review

"This book has great possibilities as a focused survey to accompany Paterson's Meeting the Communist Threat, carrying Kennan through his creative phase down through his years as a critic of U.S. foreign policy to his vindication when the Soviet Union collapsed. This book has the great advantage of personalizing the Cold War in a way that will enable students to grasp and retain its concepts much better than in an impersonal account!"--John R.M. Wilson, Southern California College

"An articulate, well-researched, intellectual biography."--The International History Review

"A magisterial on George Frost Kennan's enormous influence....Eminently well suited for professionals in the area of foreign policymaking and diplomatic history, as well as for an audience of mature university students....The definitive work on the subject."--Perspective

"This well-written analysis of George Kennan's career as a scholar-diplomat shed new light on the complexities of a professional life whose broad outlines are known to general readers as well as specialists....[Kennan] has found a worthy intellectual biographer in David Mayers."--International Affairs

"A conscientious and scrupulously fair scholar, Mayers examines Kennan's works and career with a thoroughness never before attempted....[This] is a serious work that provides the best detailed account we have of Kennan as diplomat, analyst, and critic."--Ronald Steel, The New York Review of Books

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0195051394
• ISBN 13: 9780195051391
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416