Kennan's

So I will not stand there and see Mister Kennan's dog all killed to pieces by the man who fights like a mountain lion.

CHAPTER XXXVI 2010

Kennan's sleeping-cot on the slant deck of the Ariel, as that trim craft, the Shortlands astern and New Guinea dead ahead, heeled her scuppers a-whisper and garrulous to the sea-welter alongside as she logged her eleven knots under the press of the freshening trades.

CHAPTER III 2010

It is one of the few weaknesses of Mr. Gaddis's biography that he deals with Kennan's output in this later period too brusquely.

Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

Kennan's return to the United States awakened a new strand of thought in him that for lack of a better term might be called "anti-Americanism."

Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

Kennan's final excursions into the world of diplomacy were at the ambassadorial level.

Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

Mr. Gaddis captures the full range of Kennan's life and career and reveals the complicated inner personality behind the public mask.

Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

The terms of the agreement were generous: Mr. Gaddis was given full access to Kennan's personal papers, the facilitation of interviews with family members and associates, and no review of the manuscript.

Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

The experience established another template for Kennan's life—that of the loner dedicated to hard work but inclined to tell uncomfortable truths to superiors who did not want to hear them.

Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

Frustration, Mr. Gaddis remarks, had become Kennan's normal state.

Uncontainable Alonzo L. Hamby 2011

No summary can do justice to this hilarious book—Kennan's wit never fails him, just as a companion from California never fails, no matter how catastrophic the Siberian winter turns, to claim that he has seen "worse storms in the Sierra Nevadas."

Five Best: Larry McMurtry Larry McMurtry 2011