WAR AND REVOLUTION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 928, 24 May 1957, Page 13

WAR AND REVOLUTION

RUSSIA LEAVES THE WAR, by George Kennan;, Faber and Faber, English price 50/-. O the Russians, who secured Mr Kennan’s departure from Moscow, and to the Republicans, who did as much for him in Washington, we must be grateful. Rusticated to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Mr Kennan (like his frustrated forerunner Machiavelli) has turned his experience, acumen and literary ability to the ser-

vice of scholarship; and a first-rate scholar he is. The present volume; a detailed study of the development of American policy towards Russia in the period from the October Revolution to the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, is a model of its kind. No student of diplomatic history can afford to miss it. But it would be a pity if it were read only by specialists, for three reasons, First, like all good historical writing it has the fascination of a detective story, as the author reconstructs, from the evidence surviving, the actions and motives of the participants. Secondly, those participants included a number of remarkable all-too-human beings, whose divergent responses to the rapidly-changing circumstances, against the background of war .and revolution, make for high drama (tragedy or satirical comedy as the reader chooses). Finally, the book conveys more clearly than any other I have read the nature of diplomatic activity and of American foreign policymaking. And if all the thought and argument and nervous energy devoted by intelligent and well-meaning men to those pursuits now seem to have had little influence on the course of events, how much more fortunate that the (continued on next page)

BOOKS

(continued from previous page) thought and argument and _ nervous energy of Mr Kennan have been diverted from the making to the writing

of history.

R.H.

B.