John Lewis Gaddis’ biography of the US diplomat works brilliantly as a piece of intellectual history
George Kennan is a rare example of a diplomat who changed history through the power of his ideas and the clarity of his writing. In February 1946, Kennan, the number two at the US embassy in Moscow, sent a “long telegram” to his superiors in Washington DC. At a time when many Americans still regarded the Soviet Union as an ally, Kennan explained, in limpid prose, why there could never be a normal peacetime relationship with the USSR.