George F. Kennan was America's most acclaimed Cold War diplomat as well as a prize-winning historian and author. FRANK COSTIGLIOLA is an author and historian at the University of Connecticut specialising in US foreign relations in the twentieth century.
George Kennan's diaries are arguably the most remarkable work of sustained self-analysis-and certainly self-criticism-since The Education of Henry Adams. Frank Costigliola has assembled them with great skill and sensitivity. -- John Lewis Gaddis, author of George F. Kennan: An American Life The Kennan Diaries are a vivid journey into the private thoughts and often contrary opinions of the diplomat whose influence permeated U.S. Cold War foreign policy. Eloquent and perceptive, Kennan left a moving personal record of the historic events he experienced and helped shape. -- Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State An informed mind, a clarity of expression, candor in a private diary-all are present in George Kennan's fascinating commentary on a period when the tectonic plates of the world changed. Read, enjoy, agree or disagree, and be stimulated to think. -- George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State Frank Costigliola's superb edition of George Kennan's diaries is a major addition to the literature on America's role in the twentieth-century world. It reminds us of why Kennan should be remembered as one of America's most astute commentators on the limits of our power and influence abroad. -- Robert Dallek, historian and author of An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 The diaries provide a window onto the intellectual and emotional life of the great American diplomat and thinker who had a more profound influence on American foreign policy than he recognized. [They] make fascinating reading. -- Jack F. Matlock Jr., former ambassador to the Soviet Union and author of Autopsy on an Empire [T]he publication of The Kennan Diaries is a major event. University of Connecticut historian Frank Costigliola has ably culled Kennan's herculean, 20,000-page private diary (which he kept for 88 years and which is now housed at Princeton University's Mudd Library) into an erudite, reader-friendly volume. -- Douglas Brinkley - The Washington Post The Kennan Diaries is an illuminating, fascinating and sometimes disturbing book. -- Fareed Zakaria - New York Times Book Review Valuable insight... Intellectually and literarily compelling. -- Edward A. Turzanski - Philadelphia Inquirer Irresistibly readable... Mr. Kennan has come through one last time with a book that illuminates in intricate and imaginative ways not only his times, but himself. -- James A. Warren - The Daily Beast Fascinating. -- David Greenberg - The New Republic