George F. Kennan (1904 -2005) was the U.S. Ambassador to Russia and Yugoslavia, and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He is the author of many books, including Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920 (two volumes) and From Plague After Munich: Diplomatic Papers, 1938-1940 (both from Princeton).
"Mr. Kennan takes full advantage of the colorful opportunities that
the Franco-Russian romance presents. He has not only advanced our
knowledge significantly by impressive research; he presents his
results with great skill; he writes beautifully, harmoniously, and
vividly. He is at his best when revealing how human frailties
played havoc with national interests."---Theodore Zeldin, The New
York Times Book Review
"Our former Ambassador to Russia and Yugoslavia brings to this
study the attributes of a seasoned diplomat, historian, and
linguist. With admirable clarity and fluency, Kennan . . .
untangles the skein of European and Balkan politics of the late
1800s . . . and traces the rise of nationalism and militarism which
led to W.W.I."
*Publishers Weekly*
"The world which George Kennan describes with great elegance and
skill and with much lively atmospheric detail is the world of
traditional nineteenth-century diplomacy. . . . The great
achievement of George Kennan's book is that he uses his scholarship
and his extensive knowledge of the large body of secondary
literature on the Franco-Russian Alliance to remind us how high
diplomacy of the late nineteenth century looked to
contemporaries."---James Joll, The New York Review of Books
"This is a serious historical volume, but the people it involves,
those who influenced or controlled Franco-Russian relations from
1875 to 1890, are . . . a most astonishing set of zanies,
scalawags, and fanatics, all vividly characterized by Mr.
Kennan."
*The Atlantic Monthly*
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