Volume 40, Number 4 · February 11, 1993
The Radical
By Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Around the Cragged Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy
by George F. Kennan
Norton, 272 pp., $22.95
George Kennan is an odd case in the United States at the end of the twentieth century. The republic these days has little to offer in the form of sages—persons of wisdom and experience to whom the young may look for counsel and guidance. A diplomat who began his professional career two thirds of a century ago, a historian whose work has won the respect of fellow scholars (and a couple of Pulitzer prizes), an admired analyst of current affairs and sought-after witness before congressional committees, Mr. Kennan is a man to whom the informed public at least listens, even if it often does not heed him. As his new book shows, he writes in his eighty-eighth year as trenchantly and elegantly as ever. Though Mr. Kennan has felt himself to be, like other prophets, not without honor save in his own country, he is indisputably an American sage.
Review, 4229 words
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