NIGHTLY READING THREAD: Welcome to Edition #94 of #GMGReads! Every night through this weird (and sad) time, I've been tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online....
I'm going to spend the rest of this week on recommendations around the Cold War and the nuclear age, where for obvious reasons, I have a lot of thoughts. First up, tonight, first-hand portraits and windows into the peak of American power:
1) David Lilienthal was the first head of the Atomic Energy Commission and the second volume of his journals, THE ATOMIC ENERGY YEARS, is a surprising delight, a window in the earliest post-war years and the conundrums of the nuclear age: betterworldbooks.com/product/detail…
2) Robert Gates' FROM THE SHADOWS, his first memoir, written after his time at CIA, is the best book I've ever found about how the Cold War actually ended and the pressure the US applied on the Soviet Union across a wide spectrum of fronts. Read this one: strandbooks.com/product/978141…
3) Similarly, while most people read it for the Trump gossip, FACTS AND FEARS by James Clapper is, viewed in another lens, the best portrait and explanation of the rise and creation of the American intelligence community ever written: magersandquinn.com/product_info?p…
4) McGeorge Bundy's memoir-slash-history DANGER AND SURVIVAL, about the decisions the nation and its leaders made around nuclear weapons over five decades, is an informed and forthright examination of a very hard subject: strandbooks.com/product/978039…
5) Lastly, I want to highlight George Packer's biography of Richard Holbrooke, OUR MAN, which is just one of the most remarkable books I've ever read—a literary, rakish, and highly observant portrait of a unique, tough figure. You'll be wowed by this one: magersandquinn.com/product_info?p…
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. What are your favorite political memoirs or stories of the Cold War? Share! #avidreadersunite
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