But what makes us go back to Kennan's worksdecades after the Cold War are his enduring insights into American foreign policy. Part of what makes Kennan so compelling is the sheer beauty of his prose-few other historians come close to matching its gorgeousness, which seems to come from his deep reading of great works of fiction. "These celebrated lectures, delivered at the University of Chicago in 1950, were for many years the most widely read account of American diplomacy in the first half of the twentieth century."- Foreign Affairs, Significant Books of the Last 75 Years Refreshingly candid, American Diplomacy cuts to the heart of policy issues that continue to be hotly debated today. Today, as then, the pressing issue of how to wield power with prudence and responsibility remains, and Kennan's cautions about the cost of hubris are still timely. As America grapples with its new role as one power among many-rather than as the "indispensable nation" that sees "further into the future"-Kennan's perceptive analysis of the past is all the more relevant. Mearsheimer, one of America's leading political realists, provides new understandings of Kennan's work and explores its continued resonance. In this expanded sixtieth-anniversary edition, a substantial new introduction by John J. Keenly aware of the dangers of military intervention and the negative effects of domestic politics on foreign policy, Kennan identifies troubling inconsistencies in the areas between actions and ideals-even when the strategies in question turned out to be decided successes. Drawing on his considerable diplomatic experience and expertise, Kennan offers an overview and critique of the foreign policy of an emerging great power whose claims to rightness often spill over into self-righteousness, whose ambitions conflict with power realities, whose judgmentalism precludes the interests of other states, and whose domestic politics frequently prevent prudent policies and result in overstretch. Kennan's American Diplomacy has been a standard work on American foreign policy.
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