Through the history of the Cold War : the correspondence of George F. Kennan and John Lukacs

In September 1952, John Lukacs, then a young and unknown historian, wrote George Kennan (1904-2005), the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, asking one of the nation's best-known diplomats what he thought of Lukacs's own views on Kennan's widely debated idea of containing rather than militarily confronting the Soviet Union. A month later, to Lukacs's surprise, he received a personal reply from Kennan. So began an exchange of letters that would continue for more than fifty years. Lukacs would go on to become one of America's most distinguished and prolific diplomatic historians, while Kennan, who would retire from public life to begin a new career as Pulitzer Prize-winning author, would become revered as the man whose strategy of containment led to a peaceful end to the Cold War. Their letters, collected here for the first time, capture the writing and thinking of two of the country's most important voices on America's role and place in world affairs. From the division of Europe into East and West after World War II to its unification as the Soviet Union disintegrated, and from the war in Vietnam to the threat of nuclear annihilation and the fate of democracy in America and the world, this book provides an insider's tour of the issues and pivotal events that defined the Cold War. The correspondence also charts the growth and development of an intellectual and personal friendship that was intense, devoted, and honest. As Kennan later wrote Lukacs in letter, "perceptive, understanding, and constructive criticism is . . . as I see it, in itself a form of creative philosophical thought." It is a belief to which both men subscribed and that they both practiced. Presented with an introduction by Lukacs, the letters in Through the History of the Cold War reveal new dimensions to Kennan's thinking about America and its future, and illuminate the political--and spiritual--philosophies that the two authors shared as they wrote about a world transformed by war and by the clash of ideologies that defined the twentieth century.

Presented with an introduction by John Lukacs, the letters in this volume reveal new dimensions in George Kennan's thinking about America and its future and illuminate the political—and spiritual—philosophies that both authors shared as they wrote about a world transformed by war and the clash of ideologies that defined the twentieth century.

The New York Times - Mark Atwood Lawrence

…a gloomy but fascinating volume containing more than 200 letters exchanged by Kennan and John Lukacs over half a century…The collection conveys their enormous erudition and (especially on Kennan's side) stylistic brilliance. More than anything, though, the book poses anew, in an admirably lean and accessible way, a question that has long swirled around Kennan: What were the intellectual underpinnings of his insistence on a restrained, realist foreign policy that shunned bold efforts to remake the world in the American image?

Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 Introduction 8 Part I. The Cold War Begins: Containment or Liberation Letters, 1952-1954 14 Part II. The Cold War at Its Peck: The Soviet Union Redux Letters, 1954-1964 24 Part III. How History Should Be Written Letters,1964-1983 48 Part IV. The Evil Empire and the End of the Cold War Letters, 1983-1988 98 Part V. The End of Age :American Hegemony Letters, 1988-2004 166 Calendar of the Letters 276 Index 286 Introduction The Cold War begins: containment or liberation letters, 1952-1954 The Cold War at its peak : the Soviet Union redux letters, 1954-1964 How history should be written letters, 1964-1983 The evil empire and the end of the Cold War letters, 1983-1988 The end of an age: American hegemony letters, 1988-2004. " ... The letters in this volume reveal new dimensions in George Kennan's thinking about America and its future and illuminate the political -and spiritual- philosophies that both authors shared as they wrote about a world transformed by war and the clash of ideologies that defined the twentieth century"--Jacket.