To learn what hardship the human frame is capable of enduring, and to take a just measure of the bounds of Yankee pluck and good-nature, one must read “Tent Life in Siberia ” for himself.

It was the stuff of adventure stories. When he came home he turned it into his first book, “Tent Life in Siberia.” The book established Kennan as a journalist and an expert on czarist Russia ...

A devastated Kennan returned to the US with nothing but his diaries, which he adapted into a popular book, Tent Life in Siberia, and a successful lecture series. He returned to Russia in 1870 ...

SIBERIA, a name that conjures up images of snow ... Ancient DNA from the region paints a picture of remarkably stable animal and plant life in the teeth of plunging temperatures.