Books by Lee Congdon

George Kennan for Our Time examines the work and thought of the most distinguished American diplomat of the twentieth century and extracts lessons for today. In his writings and lectures, Kennan outlined the proper conduct of foreign policy and issued warnings to an American society on the edge of the abyss. Lee Congdon identifies the principles Kennan applied to US relations with Russia and Eastern Europe, and to the Far and Near East. He takes particular note of Kennan's role in formulating postwar policy in Japan, measured response to North Korea's invasion of South Korea, and opposition to the war in Vietnam. Congdon also considers Kennan's strong criticisms of his own country, its egalitarianism, unrestricted immigration, and multiple addictions. He cites Kennan's call for a greater closeness to nature, a revival of religious faith, and a return to the representative government established by the Founding Fathers. George Kennan for Our Time describes the often-disastrous results of rejecting Kennan's counsel, and the dangers, international and national, posed by an ongoing failure to draw upon his wisdom. In view of America's foreign policy disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world, Kennan's realist approach provides important lessons for our current age.

Scarred by Europe's wars, Hungary produces a number of the 20th century's leading intellectuals, many of whom lived outside their native land in exile. This text argues that the great debate over communism was at the crux of the lives and thought of the Hungarian intellectuals in exile.

Based on recently found manuscripts and correspondence, The Young Lukacs is the first comprehensive and fully researched portrait of Georg Lukacs to appear in any language. Lee Congdon finds in the young Lukacs's estrangement from his family and from Hungarian society roots for his continuing concern with the philosophic problem of alienation.

This study of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) and his writings focuses on his reflections on the religiopolitical trajectories of Russia and the West, understood as distinct civilizations. What perhaps most sets Russia apart from the West is the Orthodox Christian faith. The mature Solzhenitsyn returned to the Orthodox faith of his childhood...

This book details the lives and careers of four sports-writing greats-Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Shirley Povich, and W. C. Heinz-and the legendary athletes and events they covered for decades. These men all wrote during what is often considered sport's Golden Age, lifting sports reporting to heights that it is unlikely to reach again.