George Kennan: A Study in Character
by John Lukacs
George Kennan died on 17 March 2005, aged 100 plus one year, one month and one day. The last half of his life he had spent in semi-retirement at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, but for a few years, between 1946 and 1952, he had been one of the most influential people in the world, and, most unusually, an influence for good. But for him the world today might be in an even worse state than it actually is.
As John Lukacs shows in this affectionate eulogy, Kennan was both typically and highly atypically American. He was typical as a poor boy from the Midwest who made good; hard-working, frugal, high-minded, rather solemn. Whereas others of his stamp amassed money, he amassed learning and, more unusually, wisdom.
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