Reviews
"Etkind makes Bullitt's sidelights into his centerpiece. . . . The result is a refreshing look at a man we thought we knew, but did not really know or understand: a complex, creative, and influential individual whose meaning and role in history is much more than that of a diplomat in Moscow." -- The Russian Review, "Alexander Etkind is among the most fecund and original of cultural historians. Extraordinary lives like William Bullitt's-- deeply involved with Freud, Wilson, Lenin, Stalin, Kennan, and Roosevelt-- make extraordinary demands on their biographers. Etkind has more than met these demands in this wonderful volume." --Eli Zaretsky, the New School for Social Resarch, "Bullitt steered through life like the kind of cabbie you hope to avoid: now jabbing the gas, now stomping the brake, all the while monologuing away. It's no wonder that such a man would catch the interest of biographers. In Roads Not Taken , a slender new edition to the corpus of Bullitt books, Alexander Etkind argues that previous treatments of the man and his life have left some blanks and blind spots, and sets about trying to fill them. We see Bullitt and his young attaches locked in le Carre-ish maneuvers with Stalin's secret police, sitting up nights with revolvers, setting electrical traps in the hallways, at least until the electricity is cut off. There is also, more kaleidoscopically, the gigantic and barely believable party that Bullitt threw at the embassy for 500 guests, featuring baby goats, a drunken bear, a Czech jazz band and enough tawdry spectacle to furnish Bulgakov all the material he needed for the Satan's Ball scene of The Master and Margarita --down to Bullitt himself presiding in the figure of Woland, the devil. . . . That kind of life makes a rich subject for a biography." -- The Wall Street Journal, "A brilliant portrait of one of the most important American diplomats of the twentieth century. A man of immense charm, a friend and savior of Freud and his family in 1938, an admirer of Russia and witness to the horror of the purges, a figure turned into fiction by Bulgakov, Bullitt comes to life in Etkind's remarkable book. Essential reading for all students of twentieth-century Europe and the European-American embrace." --Jay Winter, Yale University, "Alexander Etkind is among the most fecund and original of cultural historians. Extraordinary lives like William Bullitt's-- deeply involved with Freud, Wilson, Lenin, Stalin, Kennan, and Roosevelt-- make extraordinary demands on their biographers. Etkind has more than met these demands in this wonderful volume." --Eli Zaretsky, the New School for Social Research, "A brilliant portrait of one of the most important American diplomats of the twentieth century. A man of immense charm, a friend and savior of Freud and his family in 1938, an admirer of Russia and witness to the horror of the purges, a figure turned into fiction by Bulgakov, Bullitt comes to life in Etkind's remarkable book. Essential reading for all students of twentieth-century Europe and the European-American embrace." --Jay Winter, Yale University, "Alexander Etkind is among the most fecund and original of cultural historians. Extraordinary lives like William Bullitt's-- deeply involved with Freud, Wilson, Lenin, Stalin, Kennan and Roosevelt-- make extraordinary demands on their biographers. Etkind has more than met these demands in this wonderful volume." -- Eli Zaretsky, author of Political Freud, "Bullitt came full circle, from supporting the Revolution to supporting containment. Most of his adult life was spent combining the skills and drawbacks of an analyst, a prophet, and Cassandra. In this sympathetic biography, Alexander Etkind, offers a psychoanalytic reading of his subject, but his more conventional summary of William Bullitt also rings true: brilliant and bitter." -- The Times Literary Supplement, "An informative biography of diplomat William C. Bullitt, a name not commonly associated with the foundation of the American Cold War policy but should be. . . . Although Bullitt fell out of favor with the Roosevelt administration during World War II, his influence spread to diplomats such as George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, both of whom served under Bullitt in Moscow. This personal narrative will interest scholarly and casual readers ... Highly recommended for those seeking a satisfying biography and those who want a better understanding of American-Russian relations." --Library Journal (starred review)
