Jordan Michael Smith examines the recent biography of the Cold War diplomat George Kennan, George F. Kennan: An American Life, which Smith describes as “…the best book yet written on the most important American foreign-policy thinker-practitioner of the 20th century.” John Lewis Gaddis chronicles Kennan’s long and influential career as one of this country’s most important diplomats and historians. As well as being a great biographical work, Smith points out the fascinating insight Graddis offers on Kennan’s post 9/11 thoughts and analysis.

Elsewhere at TAC Eve Tushnet writes on the new play Collaborators by John Hodge of Trainspotting and Shallow Grave fame. The play tells the story of Bulgakov’s reluctant acceptance of a commission glamorizing Stalin’s life. In an interesting and ambitious examination of Cold War brutality and historical determinism Bulgakov takes on the persona of his play’s subject, ordering massacres and purges.