Please join us on June 14 for a talk by Grace Kennan Warnecke, chairman of the board of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, for a discussion on her new book Daughter of the Cold War (University of Pittsburgh Press, April 2018), a memoir that looks at a life lived on the edge of history.
Born in Latvia, Grace lived in seven countries and spoke five languages before the age of eleven. As a child, she witnessed Hitler’s march into Prague, attended a Soviet school during World War II, and sailed the seas with her father. In a multi-faceted career, she worked as a professional photographer, television producer, and book editor and critic. Eventually, like her father, she became a Russian specialist, but of a very different kind. She accompanied Ted Kennedy and his family to Russia, escorted Joan Baez to Moscow to meet with dissident Andrei Sakharov, and hosted Josef Stalin’s daughter on the family farm after Svetlana defected to the United States. While running her own consulting company in Russia, she witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and later became director of a women’s economic empowerment project in a newly independent Ukraine.
Daughter of the Cold War is a tale of all these adventures and so much more. This compelling and evocative memoir allows readers to follow Grace’s amazing path through life – a whirlwind journey of survival, risk, and self-discovery through a kaleidoscope of many countries, historic events, and fascinating people.
Following the discussion, copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
“Grace Kennan Warnecke isn’t as well known as other Kennans have been, but she should be and this memoir shows why. It’s a vivid account of living a life of one’s own with a famous father, supplying much that’s missing in other biographies. Highly recommended.”—John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University, author of George F. Kennan: An American Life
“Beautifully crafted, a pleasure to read. Warnecke is more than just George F. Kennan’s daughter. She was present at important historical events and adds interesting details as to how we understand them. Few Americans have the depth and duration of interaction with Russia Warnecke has, so that her observations about Soviet and Russian life are of importance. Her life reveals what it meant to be an intelligent, professional woman for much of the late twentieth century.”—Blair Ruble, Vice President for Programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center
About the Author
Grace Kennan Warnecke is chairman of the board of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. A fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and member of the advisory council of the Kennan Institute, she is former chair of the National Advisory Council at the Harriman Institute, and has held numerous positions in the public and private sector.
Warnecke was also associate producer of the prize-winning PBS documentary The First Fifty Years: Reflections on U.S.-Soviet Relations.
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Image courtesy of University of Pittsburgh Press
THU—June 14—5:30 PM, free