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Better news: 'Hawk and Dove'
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Nicholas Thompson's new book The Hawk and the Dove has received admiring reviews and was the subject of a wonderful feature story this past weekend in the New York Times. It's a very good work -- not least because it takes a gamble on a "high concept" for the book, and pulls it off.
Actually there are two high concepts here. One is that a paired biography of two often-contending figures of the Cold War era -- Paul Nitze and George Kennan (left and right, respectively, in the photo, often with the opposite orientation in their policies) -- will work in literary and intellectual terms. The other is that the author's relationship to one of the subjects -- Nitze was his grandfather -- will give him extra insight without warping his perspective. It succeeds on both counts.
Nicholas Thompson is 34 years old; I first met him a dozen years ago, when he was part of a student group pressuring US News to change its benighted college-ranking system. (I was then US News' editor. Story for another time.) Since then he has worked for great magazines -- the Washington Monthly, Legal Affairs, now Wired -- and been part of the New America Foundation. With all the woes of journalism, it's encouraging to see ambitious and talented people giving it their best.
Actually there are two high concepts here. One is that a paired biography of two often-contending figures of the Cold War era -- Paul Nitze and George Kennan (left and right, respectively, in the photo, often with the opposite orientation in their policies) -- will work in literary and intellectual terms. The other is that the author's relationship to one of the subjects -- Nitze was his grandfather -- will give him extra insight without warping his perspective. It succeeds on both counts.
Nicholas Thompson is 34 years old; I first met him a dozen years ago, when he was part of a student group pressuring US News to change its benighted college-ranking system. (I was then US News' editor. Story for another time.) Since then he has worked for great magazines -- the Washington Monthly, Legal Affairs, now Wired -- and been part of the New America Foundation. With all the woes of journalism, it's encouraging to see ambitious and talented people giving it their best.
