The Marquis De Custine And His Russia In 1839
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: No markings
A masterful work of historical and literary criticism, this study presents diplomat and scholar George F. Kennan's authoritative reassessment of the Marquis de Custine's landmark travel memoir, Russia in 1839. Kennan chronicles the life of the French aristocrat Astolphe de Custine, illuminating the personal experiences and political convictions that shaped his famously scathing portrait of Tsarist Russia under Nicholas I. With the measured precision of a seasoned statesman, Kennan argues that Custine's observations — long dismissed or celebrated in equal measure — remain a remarkably prescient diagnosis of Russian autocracy and its enduring psychological grip on both rulers and ruled. Drawing on his own unparalleled expertise as a Cold War architect and Russia scholar, Kennan illustrates the striking parallels between the despotic system Custine witnessed in the nineteenth century and the Soviet state of the twentieth, lending the analysis a weight that transcends mere literary biography. The result is an indispensable companion to one of history's most penetrating accounts of Russia, written by one of America's most distinguished foreign policy minds.
Author: George F. Kennan
Format: Hardback
Published: 1972, Hutchinson of London
Genre: European history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: No markings
A masterful work of historical and literary criticism, this study presents diplomat and scholar George F. Kennan's authoritative reassessment of the Marquis de Custine's landmark travel memoir, Russia in 1839. Kennan chronicles the life of the French aristocrat Astolphe de Custine, illuminating the personal experiences and political convictions that shaped his famously scathing portrait of Tsarist Russia under Nicholas I. With the measured precision of a seasoned statesman, Kennan argues that Custine's observations — long dismissed or celebrated in equal measure — remain a remarkably prescient diagnosis of Russian autocracy and its enduring psychological grip on both rulers and ruled. Drawing on his own unparalleled expertise as a Cold War architect and Russia scholar, Kennan illustrates the striking parallels between the despotic system Custine witnessed in the nineteenth century and the Soviet state of the twentieth, lending the analysis a weight that transcends mere literary biography. The result is an indispensable companion to one of history's most penetrating accounts of Russia, written by one of America's most distinguished foreign policy minds.