In an attempt to discover some of the underlying origins of World War I, the eminent diplomat and writer George Kennan focuses on a small sector of offstage events to show how they affected the drama at large long before the war even began. In the introduction to his book George Kennan tells us, "I came to see World War I . . . as the great seminal catastrophe of this century--the event which . . . lay at the heart of the failure and decline of this Western civilization." But, he asks, who could help being struck by the contrast between this apocalyptic result and the "delirious euphoria"...

In 1918 the United States Government decided to involve itself in the Russian Revolution by sending troops to Siberia. This book recreates that unhappily memorable story--the arrival of British marines at Murmansk, the diplomatic maneuvering, the growing Russian hostility, the uprising of the Czechoslovak troops in central Siberia which threatened to overturn the Bolsheviks, the acquisitive ambitions of the Japanese in Manchuria, and finally the decision by President Wilson to intervene with American troops. The Decision to Intervene is the second of three volumes in Mr. Kennan's...

In August 1938 George F. Kennan was assigned as Secretary of Legation in Prague. After the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939, he stayed on in that country when most other Western observers had left. These diplomatic papers, letters, and notes are on-the-spot observations by a skilled and sensitive historian and diplomat. They offer a unique record of one of the tragic events in modern European history. Depicted here are the attempts at Germanization of Czech life, the cynical exploitation of various native organizations, the German insistence on a program of anti-Semitism, the...

This absorbing volume explores the complexities of the Soviet-American relationship between the November Revolution of 1917 and Russia's final departure in March 1918 from the ranks of the warring powers.

Originally published in 1986.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the...