George Kennan is best known as the author of the “X article” on containment that appeared anonymously in 1947 and went on to be studied, reviled, read, and misread throughout the world for decades thereafter. But over the course of his long life (1904-2005), Kennan was also a diplomat with the American Foreign Service, a presidential adviser who worked on the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall plan, a scholar of history and a prolific writer of essays, and the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir.

Renowned historian John Lukacs illustrates all of the above and more in his acclaimed new “character study” of Kennan, published by Yale University Press. A recent review in the New York Sun says, “Profound respect for Kennan the man and the writer is writ large on every page of this crystalline book, which is a kind of throwback to the 18th century, when the term ‘character’ meant a good deal more than it does today.” Strobe Talbott, president of The Brookings Institution, writes, “In this short, brilliant study of a long, prodigious life, John Lukacs has demonstrated, yet again, his genius for capturing, with gimlet-eyed economy, the essence of the pivotal events and careers of history. In the shelves of books that have been written by and about George Kennan, this one deserves a place of honor.”

For the full text of the New York Sun article, click here.