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Jay Ulfelder of Dart Throwing Chimp pens an intriguing review.

PRAGATI – the Indian National Interest Review has published my review of John Lewis Gaddis’ biography George F. Kennan: An American Life 

The creative art of strategy 

….Into the breach strides eminent diplomatic historian John Lewis Gaddis, offering a magisterial 784 page biography, a quarter- century in the making, George F. Kennan: An American Life. Gaddis, a noted historian of the Cold War and critic of revisionist interpretations of American foreign policy, has produced his magnum opus, distilling not only the essence of Kennan’s career, but the origins of his grand strategic worldview that were part and parcel the self-critical and lonely isolation that made Kennan such an acute observer of foreign societies and a myopic student of his own.

Gaddis, who is a co-founder of the elite Grand Strategy Program at Yale University, had such a long intellectual association with his subject, having been appointed Kennan’s biographer in 1982, that one wonders on theories of strategy at times where George Kennan ends and John Lewis Gaddis begins. Giving Kennan the supreme compliment among strategists, that he possessed in the years of the Long Telegram and the Policy Planning Staff, Clausewitz’s Coup d’oeil, Gaddis does not shy away from explaining Kennan’s human imperfections to the reader that made the diplomat a study in contradictions….

Read the rest here.

The End by Ian Kershaw

I have a deadline to meet this week for a publisher, so my posts are going to be short and to the point.

Just received the above title as a gift from my father-in-law. Having read Kershaw’s 2 volume bio of Hitler, as a historian, he merits the accolade “critically acclaimed” and is one of number that I direct students to read who express an interest in WWII or the history of the Third Reich. Here Kershaw explores the Nazi Gotterdammerung of 1944-45; a worthwhile lesson for those who hold supreme confidence in the ultimate rationality of states in existential matters of war and peace.

That Hitler had been unfathomable to the blinkered and idealistic Neville  Chamberlain seems all too comprehensible, but that the Fuhrer also took in the wily, Georgian monster who ruled of the USSR is less so – until you grasp Hitler’s obsession with triumph or death.  In matters of war the difference between the 20th century’s greatest dictators was that Josef Stalin miscalculated on small stakes while Adolf Hitler gambled for the pot.

Recklessly.

George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

Zero History by William Gibson 

Just picked these up.

Zero History will have to wait until I read Spook Country, which sits on my shelf. Gibson is good; along with Steven Pressfield he is one of the few living writers of fiction that I will take the time to read.

The Kennan bio is a long awaited and much talked about book about the prickly and difficult father of Containment.  Gaddis, an eminent diplomatic historian and a conservative in a field that still tilts leftward and where many of his peers count opposition to the Vietnam War as the formative political experience of their lives, has probably written the most important book of his career as Kennan’s official biographer.

Will review in the future.

General Ray Odierno, Chief of Staff of the US Army has a pretty good prospective professional reading list in the works with many titles of general interest to people in national security and foreign policy fields. He’s asking for feedback too.

Minus the Mustache of Understanding, whose inclusion seems to be required on lists of these kind, there are titles here that I would strongly recommend including McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom,  The Landmark Thucydides, Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire and the best of military historians and strategists like Paret, Keegan, van Creveld and Parker.

I would recommend adding Acheson’s memoir Present at the Creation, for an understanding of policy and national strategy and Alan Schom’s critical and monumental biography, Napoleon Bonaparte: A Life, for a comprehensive understanding of Napoleon’s campaigns in context with his psychology and political leadership.

But what seems to really be missing from the General’s list is a good book on intelligence history and tradecraft.

Since the list is intended for military officers, it would not have to be a technical critique along the lines of Roberta Wohlstetter’s Warning and Decision (though that would not hurt) but something that gave a good overview, spymaster biography or history, would help.

I can think of many, but I’d like to see what the readership would nominate in the comment section. Have at it!

Hat tip to Lucien.