McNamara at War

In McNamara at War two brothers, a top-flight biographer and a top-flight journalist, have joined forces to create a character study of Robert McNamara, one of the most complicated figures in modern American history. The resulting work is an evidence-based meditation on McNamara’s agonizing relationship to himself, his family, and the nation and on the power of the government to create mass destruction, with seemingly less power, or inclination, to stop it. Confident, thorough, compassionate, and yet clear-eyed, this masterful work should be required reading for those who lived through the daily televised body counts and for anyone who hopes not to ever again.–Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of In These Girls, Hope Is a MusclePhilip and William Taubman have written a compelling, fluid, and insightful biography of one of the most important figures in American foreign policy in the second half of the twentieth century, a man known to history as the architect of the Vietnam War. Readers who have no personal memory of the Vietnam period as well as those who remember it vividly will find McNamara at War fascinating.–Michael Mandelbaum, author of The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History They MadePhilip and William Taubman’s McNamara at War is a compelling biography of McNamara’s life. The Taubmans meticulously explore McNamara’s life before, during and after becoming Secretary of Defense, identifying from early days an exceptionally complicated man whose traits–such as confidence he was the smartest man in the room and a deep-seated reluctance to change his mind or admit he was wrong–would play an important part in his downfall. A transfixing tale of tragedy.–Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense 2006-2011At last, we have the man in full. McNamara at War illuminates the high-octane ambition and ability that propelled Robert McNamara to the pinnacles of power in both the private and political realms. With penetrating insight and capacious sensitivity, the authors give us nothing less than McNamara Agonistes: a vivid portrait of this uncommonly brilliant and uncommonly complex soul tormented by trials of intelligence, will, morality, and loyalty. A compelling, memorable read. It reveals much about the waging of the Vietnam War as well as the often-baffling labyrinths of human nature.–David Kennedy, author of Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His book, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of McNamara at War: A New History and Gorbachev: His Life and Times. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Philip Taubman, a former New York Times Washington Bureau Chief, is affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is the author of In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz.