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The Kennan Diaries
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 27 hrs and 55 mins
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Publisher's summary
A landmark collection, spanning 90 years of U.S. history, of the never-before-published diaries of George F. Kennan, America’s most famous diplomat.
On a hot July afternoon in 1953, George F. Kennan descended the steps of the State Department building as a newly retired man. His career had been tumultuous: early postings in eastern Europe followed by Berlin in 1940-41 and Moscow in the last year of World War II. In 1946, the 42-year-old Kennan authored the "Long Telegram", a 5,500-word indictment of the Kremlin that became mandatory reading in Washington. A year later, in an article in Foreign Affairs, he outlined "containment", America’s guiding strategy in the Cold War. Yet what should have been the pinnacle of his career - an ambassadorship in Moscow in 1952 - was sabotaged by Kennan himself, deeply frustrated at his failure to ease the Cold War that he had helped launch.
Yet, if it wasn’t the pinnacle, neither was it the capstone; over the next 50 years, Kennan would become the most respected foreign policy thinker of the 20th century, giving influential lectures, advising presidents, and authoring 20 books, winning two Pulitzer prizes and two National Book awards in the process.Through it all, Kennan kept a diary. Spanning a staggering 88 years and totaling over 8,000 pages, his journals brim with keen political and moral insights, philosophical ruminations, poetry, and vivid descriptions. In these pages, we see Kennan rambling through 1920s Europe as a college student, despairing for capitalism in the midst of the Depression, agonizing over the dilemmas of sex and marriage, becoming enchanted and then horrified by Soviet Russia, and developing into America’s foremost Soviet analyst. But it is the second half of this near-century-long record - the blossoming of Kennan the gifted author, wise counselor, and biting critic of the Vietnam and Iraq wars - that showcases this remarkable man at the height of his singular analytic and expressive powers, before giving way, heartbreakingly, to some of his most human moments, as his energy, memory, and finally his ability to write fade away.
Masterfully selected and annotated by historian Frank Costigliola, the result is a landmark work of profound intellectual and emotional power. These diaries tell the complete narrative of Kennan’s life in his own intimate and unflinching words and, through him, the arc of world events in the 20th century.
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The Hawk and the Dove
- Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War
- By: Nicholas Thompson
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Only two Americans held positions of great influence throughout the Cold War; ironically, they were the chief advocates for the opposing strategies for winning---and surviving---that harrowing conflict. Both men came to power during World War II, reached their professional peaks during the Cold War's most frightening moments, and fought epic political battles that spanned decades.
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Two outstanding people in the US Government
- By Nina Donnard on 11-05-09
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The Education of Henry Adams
- By: Henry Adams
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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As a journalist, historian, and novelist born into a family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was constantly focused on the American experiment. An immediate bestseller awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919, The Education of Henry Adams recounts his own and the country's education from 1838, the year of his birth, to 1905, incorporating the Civil War, capitalist expansion, and the growth of the United States as a world power.
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A Book EVERYONE should read once.
- By Darwin8u on 04-17-12
By: Henry Adams
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Hitler
- The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer
- By: Ernst Hanfstaengl
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate friend of Adolf Hitler’s who turned against him during the Nazi rise to power delves into the character of one of history’s most evil dictators. Of American and German parentage, Ernst Hanfstaengl graduated from Harvard and ran the family business in New York for a dozen years before returning to Germany in 1921. By chance he heard a then little-known Adolf Hitler speaking in a Munich beer hall and, mesmerized by his extraordinary oratorical power, was convinced the man would some day come to power. As Hitler’s fanatical theories and ideas hardened, however, he surrounded himself with rabid extremists...
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Once a Nazi, always a Nazi
- By Alan on 04-10-13
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Lioness
- Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel
- By: Francine Klagsbrun
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 32 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Born in tsarist Russia in 1898, she immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee, where from her earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation. Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life.
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The persistent mispronunciations of Hebrew and Yiddish words ruined this performance
- By YH-O on 12-30-18
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Three Days in January
- Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission
- By: Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney
- Narrated by: Bret Baier, Danny Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In this debut history from one of America's most influential political journalists, Bret Baier casts the three days between Dwight Eisenhower's prophetic "farewell address" on the evening of January 17, 1961, and his successor John F. Kennedy's inauguration on the afternoon of January 20 as the final mission of one of modern America's greatest leaders.
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Gently In Manner, Strongly In Deed...
- By Gillian on 01-20-17
By: Bret Baier, and others
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My Battle Against Hitler
- Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich
- By: John Henry Crosby, Dietrich von Hildebrand
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In My Battle against Hitler, von Hildebrand tells of the scorn and ridicule he endured for sounding the alarm when many still viewed Hitler as a positive and inevitable force. He tells how he defiantly challenged Nazism in the public square, prompting the German ambassador in Vienna to describe him to Hitler as "the architect of the intellectual resistance."
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amazing book what in site I loved every second.
- By tracie on 07-14-15
By: John Henry Crosby, and others
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In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
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I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
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Hitler
- Ascent 1889-1939
- By: Volker Ullrich
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 34 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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For all the literature about Adolf Hitler, there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood, to his failures as a young man in Vienna, to his experiences during the First World War, to his rise as a far-right party leader.
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Worthwhile if you haven't read a Hitler biography
- By Joshua on 11-03-16
By: Volker Ullrich
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You Learn by Living
- Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
- By: Eleanor Roosevelt
- Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most beloved figures of the 20th century, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt remains a role model for a life well lived. At the age of 76, Roosevelt penned this simple guide to living a fuller life. You Learn by Living is a powerful volume of enduring common sense ideas and heartfelt values. Offering her own philosophy on living, Eleanor takes listeners on a path to compassion, confidence, maturity, civic stewardship, and more. Her keys to a fulfilling life?
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Great advice
- By Jero on 09-10-20
What listeners say about The Kennan Diaries
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- philippe jacob
- 02-16-21
Good old boy, but a bit less suicidal
This is an amazing story written by himself and by an unaware ethnocentric person, who perceives himself as a generous, all American, who pays the bill for the entire world. He is very much as a landlord in a very poor neighborhood, who would argue for lowering the rents to his other friends landlords. And as suggesting such an idea, he perceives himself as a good man and a philosopher. These dairies are a perfect illustration of what was going on inside of the mind of these cold war days heroes who saved the planet! A fascinating book.
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- Brooklynshops
- 09-01-23
Never read a book like this.
It took me all of August to listen to this audiobook partly because I slowed it in order to absorb it all. Time very well spent. Diaries! Enlightening. Educational on foreign policy in ways never before presented. I do wish he had described more of his reasons for loving Russians, something that might be useful in the most recent decade. Surprising in the personal revelations he clearly made without reservation revealing more than one might have thought of limited knowledge of the circumstances of other people - particularly African Americans, women and other minorities. Stunning intellectual consistency on his philosophy on faith, militarization and oil. Also revelatory in his observations on his own aging. Earlier in the summer, conversations with a dying aunt paralleled his reflections. i appreciated that.
And so I thank him for his diary and all those who made this possible.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jean
- 03-18-14
a complex man
George F. Kennan was the most celebrated diplomat-intellectual of the 20th century. He was the author of the strategy of containment that the United States adopted for the cold war. He was thought of as a strategist and as these diaries make clear, he spent much of his life thinking about political philosophy. The diaries cover 88 years so Frank Costigliola did a lot of editing to make into a readable format without changing the content. Kennan did not like automobiles, planes or fax machines; I wonder what he would say about all the electronic gadgets we have today. I was most interested in what he wrote in the section of the diaries covering the late 1990’s about not allowing the former USSR countries such as Poland, Hungry, and Ukraine to join NATO. He said these countries must be allowed as a buffer zone between Europe and Russia otherwise Russia would feel threaten and a new cold war would start or possibly a shooting war. Considering what is happening today in the Ukraine no one paid attention to his warning. Toward the end of his life he wrote a book called “Around the Cragged Hill” which he thought was his best work but the world has ignored. In the diary he was most upset about how the book was ignored. He wrote 20 books won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award twice plus many more awards. After he finished his career as a diplomat he was at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study for over 25 years. The diary reveals him to be a brilliant man but also one with problems of loneliness, self-doubt, and suffering from period bouts of depression. He was a gifted writer and his prose shine through even in the diary. I learned a great deal about what happened during the cold war from reading this book, I almost felt overwhelmed by the amount of information provided. I think I will read some of his books now that I know more about the man the books will mean more to me. If you are interested in history this book will interest you. William Dufris did a good job narrating the book. This would be a good book for whisper sync.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Kelly Bundy
- 06-07-14
This is a phenomenal book. Amazing book.
This book is a selections of Kennan's letter and lifelong diary. Written by one of the most eloquent and brilliant men of the centuries he lived through, it offers a fascinating story of one man's life of thinking, both professionally and personal, geopolitical, in depression and almost up to his moment of death at age 100 plus. You are in his mind and the editor did a wonderful job selecting letters and diary entries so that this flows like a book written over 80 years by a truly profound thinker, writer, and man. One of the best books I have read (note: I am a Kennan book collector and this book makes an ideal pair with Gaddes biography of Kennan)
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4 people found this helpful
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- "Gardencottage"
- 10-28-17
Narrator important
I had to give up listening to this book, as I regretfully could not cope with the narrator's accent and in particular speed. Even though I tried to hear it at a lower speed it didn't work for me.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jon Z
- 01-01-15
So was this one ever hard
Boring format. Droning voice. Some interesting details, but overall not so good. Not recommend what so ever. Spare yourself pain.
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