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Article: Literary Ambassador.(George Kennan: A Writing Life)(Book review)
- Article from:
- The American Conservative
- Article date:
- December 15, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 The American Conservative LLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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[George Kennan: A Writing Life, Lee Congdon, ISI, 183 pages]
IN HIS FAMOUS 1947 ARTICLE, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," George Frost Kennan (under the now famous pseudonym Mr. X), sought to explain the motivations behind the Soviet dictatorship. For insight, he sought not Marx or Trotsky, but Edward Gibbon: "From enthusiasm to imposture ... how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle way between self-illusion and voluntary fraud." Near the end of his article, Kennan turned to Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, that towering work of familial decay and doom. Kennan speculated that, just as the Buddenbrooks family had shone most brilliantly at the point when its ...