Biografie

New York, The Penguin Press 2011, cm.16x24,5, pp.784, hardcover, dustjacket. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year Drawing on extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his archives, an eminent scholar of the Cold War delivers a revelatory biography of its troubled mastermind. In the late 1940s, George Kennan wrote two documents, the "Long Telegram" and the "X Article," which set forward the strategy of containment that would define U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next four decades. This achievement alone would qualify him as the most influential American diplomat of the Cold War era. But he was also an architect of the Marshall Plan, a prizewinning historian, and would become one of the most outspoken critics of American diplomacy, politics, and culture during the last half of the twentieth century. Now the full scope of Kennan's long life and vast influence is revealed by one of today's most important Cold War scholars. Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis began this magisterial history almost thirty years ago, interviewing Kennan frequently and gaining complete access to his voluminous diaries and other personal papers. So frank and detailed were these materials that Kennan and Gaddis agreed that the book would not appear until after Kennan's death. It was well worth the wait: the journals give this book a breathtaking candor and intimacy that match its century-long sweep. We see Kennan's insecurity as a Midwesterner among elites at Princeton, his budding dissatisfaction with authority and the status quo, his struggles with depression, his gift for satire, and his sharp insights on the policies and people he encountered. Kennan turned these sharp analytical gifts upon himself, even to the point of regularly recording dreams. The result is a remarkably revealing view of how this greatest of Cold War strategists came to doubt his strategy and always doubted himself. This is a landmark work of history and biography that reveals the vast influence and rich inner landscape of a life that both mirrored and shaped the century it spanned.

Torino, Einaudi 1989, cm.15,5x21,5, pp.XIII,420, leg.ed.in t.tela,soprac.fig.a col. Bibl.di Cultura Storica.

Bologna, Il Mulino 2019, cm.16x24, pp.XV,311, brossura copertina figurata. Collana: Ist. italiano per gli studi storici. Nato nel 1900 e formatosi nella Trieste post-imperiale del primo dopoguerra, Vittorio Vidali è stato un rivoluzionario e dirigente del movimento comunista internazionale, la cui pluridecennale militanza è passata attraverso momenti e scenari di capitale importanza nella travagliata storia della prima metà del Novecento. La periodizzazione scelta, dal 1916 al 1956, è legata allo stalinismo di Vidali: inteso sia come quel complesso di principi, norme e pratiche in vigore nell’Unione Sovietica e nel Comintern nel periodo in cui Stalin fu al potere, quale approdo soggettivo di un percorso di vita e di formazione politico-culturale. Ciò perché il comunismo è inteso sia nella sua dimensione di rete politico-organizzativa di ampiezza globale, ma anche in quella esistenziale, come visione del mondo ed esperienza individuale intessuta di relazioni e scambi transnazionali. La fisionomia di Vidali quale ‘agente del Comintern’ si va man mano strutturando nel corso delle missioni negli Stati Uniti e nel Messico degli anni Venti, intersecandosi per sua stessa natura con gli oscuri ambiti di competenza propri dei servizi segreti sovietici. A lungo sentimentalmente legato alla fotografa Tina Modotti e circondato dall’amicizia di figure di spicco dell’ambiente intellettuale e artistico del suo tempo (da Ernest Hemingway a Pablo Neruda, da Joris Ivens a Hannes Meyer, a Rafael Alberti), come fondatore del Quinto Reggimento e protagonista della difesa di Madrid durante la guerra civile spagnola il nome di Vidali, ammantato nel leggendario appellativo di comandante Carlos, assume un rilievo internazionalmente riconosciuto all’interno del movimento comunista e dell’antifascismo in generale. Frutto avvelenato della medesima stagione, parallela al mito e altrettanto duratura prende forma intorno a Vidali una leggenda nera che lo vorrà coinvolto in alcuni tra i più chiacchierati delitti politici di sospetta matrice sovietica a cavallo della Guerra fredda.

Foreword by Owen Chadwick. New Haven - London, Yale University Press 2000, cm.16,5x24, pp.XXIV,548, hardcover, dustjacket. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton, 1887 Lord Acton (1834-1902), numbered among the most esteemed Victorian historical thinkers, was much respected for his vast learning, his ideas on politics and religion, and his lifelong preoccupation with human freedom. Yet Acton was in many ways an outsider. He stood apart from his contemporaries, doubting the notion of unlimited progress and the blessings of nationalism and democracy. He differed from fellow members of the English upper class, holding to his Catholic faith; and he angered other Catholic believers by fiercely opposing the doctrine of papal infallibility. In this remarkable biography, Roland Hill is the first to make full use of the vast collection of books, documents and private papers in the Acton archives to tell the story of the enigmatic Lord. The book describes Acton's extended family of European aristocrats, his cosmopolitan upbringing, and his disrupted education. Drawing a lively picture of politics and religion at the time, Hill discusses Acton's brief career as a Liberal member of Parliament, his work as editor and owner of learned Catholic journals, his battles for freedom for and in the Catholic Church, his friendship with William E. Gladstone, and his seven years as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. Though unable to complete The Cambridge Modern History series he envisaged, Acton transformed historical study and left a legacy of ideas that continues to influence historians today.

Translated by Lili Halápy. New York, Belwin Mills Publishing Corporation 1972, cm.20,7x29, pp.259,(1), 375 ill. di cui 4 a colori, leg. ed. in tutta tela nera, firma del compositore riprodotta in negativo al piatto ant., titolo al dorso, sopraccoperta fig.

London, The Warburg Institute / University of London 1970, cm.18,5x26,5, pp.VI,376, quasi 200 ill. in 65 tavv. in nero in fine, leg. ed. in tutta tela color malva, tioli in oro al piatto ant. e al dorso. First edition.

Milano, Rizzoli 1965, cm.16x23, pp.552, legatura editoriale in tutta tela.

Editions Gallimard; 2012, cm.15x23, pp.1048, brossura copertina figurata a colori. Il est né sous Louis XV dans une Bretagne encore féodale ; il est mort en pleine révolution de 1848. Au cours de cette longue existence ont passé les régimes et les constitutions. Il a beaucoup vécu et beaucoup vu depuis Combourg : le Paris révolutionnaire, les Indiens de Niagara, les taudis de Londres, Rome par deux fois, les corneilles de l'Acropole, les murs de Jérusalem. Et au milieu de ces tribulations, il a eu le temps de devenir le plus grand écrivain de sa génération. C'est aussi le premier " enfant du siècle " à être entré en politique sous la Restauration pour ne plus en sortir. Il en a épousé les vicissitudes sans jamais renoncer à son idéal de liberté aristocratique, qui conjugue la tradition et le progrès, la légitimité royale et la citoyenneté, le double héritage de l'Ancien Régime et de la Révolution. C'est dire que pour ses contemporains, Chateaubriand fut souvent une énigme. Jean-Claude Berchet reconstitue ce parcours complexe dans une biographie magistrale qui tisse des liens continus entre le génie littéraire, la vie amoureuse et les passions politiques du grand homme. Au fil des pages se dessine un portrait moral contrasté : le " bon garçon " de la famille et des intimes, ou le pair de France qui interpelle les rois ; le séducteur irrésistible et le fidèle adorateur de Juliette Récamier ; le poète de la mélancolie ou de la tendresse et le polémiste incisif de la Légitimité. De ce destin singulier que Chateaubriand a voulu styliser dans ses Mémoires, ce livre restitue les aléas imprévisibles et méconnus, autant dire le charme secret.

Note ed indice di Ives Coirault. Paris, Ediz.Gallimard 1983, cm.11x18, pp.1706, leg.ed.in t.pelle,titoli in oro al dorso, sopracop.fig.bn. Coll.Bibl.de la Pleiade.

Published for the exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery from 25 November 1977 to 12 March 1978. London, the National Portrait Gallery 1978, cm.20,8x26, pp.147,(1), testo su 2 colonne, numerose ill. in nero e 7 tavv. a colori f.t., di cui una all'antiporta, br., copertina fig. a colori. Second impression

London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1967, cm.14,5x22, pp.316, leg. ed. in tutta tela, titolo in oro al dorso.

Note ed indice di Ives Coirault. Paris, Ediz.Gallimard 1958, cm.11x18, pp.1724, leg.ed.in t.pelle,titoli in oro al dorso,sopracop.fig.bn. Coll.Bibl.de la Pleiade.

Edition Etabli par Yves Coirault. Paris, Ediz.Gallimard 1983, cm.11x18, pp.CVI,1650, leg.ed.in t.pelle,titoli in oro al dorso, sopracop.fig.bn. Coll.Bibl.de la Pleiade.

Note Edition etabli par Ives Coirault. Paris, Ediz.Gallimard 1985, cm.11x18, pp.1545, leg.ed.in t.pelle,titoli in oro al dorso,sopracop.fig.bn. Coll.Bibl.de la Pleiade.

Milano, Rusconi 1994, cm.12x20, pp.249, br. Coll.Biografie.

Oxford, at the Clarendon Press 1892, cm.14x22,5, pp.(8),504,(20)., un ritratto di C. protetto da velina all'antiporta, leg. ed. in tutta tela verde, cornice in oro al piatto ant., titoli in oro al dorso. Second edidion.

Firenze, Sansoni 1943, cm.16,5x22, pp380, 38 tavv.bn.ft. br.soprac.fig.

Roma, A.F.Formìggini Editore 1914, cm.10x15,5, pp.70, una tav.in bn.in antip., br., cop.in pergamenino rimboccata. Coll.Profili,36.

Oxford, Clarendon Press 1986, cm.16,5x24, pp.XII,276, paperback. William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) has been hailed as the most characteristic and extraordinary of Victorians. His expansive public career--in and out of office from 1834 to 1894 and four times Prime Minister--was consistently controversial and dramatic. This work, by a highly acclaimed Gladstone scholar, makes available in a single volume the story of one of the most powerful political personalities in British history. The book describes Gladstone's education, his political career from the early years as a Tory to his spectacular first administration from 1868 to 1874 and the remarkable private drama of sexual temptation and moral crisis, which from the 1840s underlay Gladstone's public life. Illuminating the keen ways in which Gladstone managed to keep himself at the "top of the greasy pole" and become one of the most successful political figures in Britain, the work shows how Gladstone's career and views helped shape parliamentary politics of the Victorian age.

A cura di Guido Davico Bonino. Con una cronologia delle opere di Ettore Camesasca. Torino, Einaudi 1982, cm.12x18, pp.XLVI,514, leg.ed.in t.tela, sopracoperta figurata. Coll.NUE,149.