Gregory Wallance, "Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)

New Books in American Studies · Feb 8, 2024 · 54m

It’s perhaps one of history’s funny accidents that relations between the U.S. and Russia were changed not by one, but two, George Kennans. Decades before George F. Kennan wrote his famous Long Telegram that set the tone for the Cold War, his predecessor was exploring Russia’s Far East on a quest to investigate the then-Russian Empire’s practice of exiling political prisoners to Siberia. What Kennan saw on his journey shook him to his very core, forcing him to question his respect for the Russian Empire. And as writer Gregory Wallance explains in his book Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic…