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Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
@vermontgmg
Jun 23, 2020 • 11 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
NIGHTLY READING THREAD: And so we come to Edition #99 of #GMGReads—the 15th week begins! Every night through this weird 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....
Tonight, I want to feature histories about leadership and how the toughest decisions in geopolitics get made—why they go well and why they go poorly:
1) Barbara Tuchman's study of the geopolitical inertia that led Europe to stumble into World War I, GUNS OF AUGUST, is surely one of the most majestic (and cautionary) books on leadership ever written: bookshop.org/books/the-guns…
PS: Christopher Clark wrote another thoughtful look at the same topic, THE SLEEPWALKERS: bookshop.org/books/the-slee…
2) There are two really good books inside the Kennedy White House's thinking during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Graham Allison's ESSENCE OF DECISION magersandquinn.com/product_info?p… and Robert Kennedy's own THIRTEEN DAYS: bookshop.org/books/thirteen…
3) Brian Vandemark's ROAD TO DISASTER pairs the narrative of failures of the nation's leaders amid Vietnam with psychological understanding of why they screwed up in their decision-making: bookshop.org/books/road-to-…
4) Doris Kearns Goodwin distilled the leadership lessons of her various biographies of Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, and Teddy Roosevelt in the engaging and illuminating LEADERSHIP: bookshop.org/books/leadersh…
5) Lastly, Robert Caro has written some of the best books ever on the utilization of power, and his portrait of New York public works king Robert Moses, THE POWER BROKER, is a figurative and literal giant of a book: bookshop.org/books/the-powe…
PS: I've previously mentioned Caro's LBJ biographies, which are just some of the greatest nonfiction ever written. I wish he'd hurry up and finish the last volume so we can find out how LBJ's presidency goes!
PPS: One final book that's not exactly about leadership but focus on lessons in decision-making: My friend Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, wrote what has basically become the gold standard of negotiation books, NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE: bookshop.org/books/never-sp…
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. What are your favorite books on leadership and decision-making? What did you read this weekend? Share! Tune in tomorrow night for the final two nights of #GMGReads (for now). #avidreadersunite

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More from @vermontgmg

Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Sep 11, 2023
THREAD: Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Throughout the day, I’ll be chronologically tweeting quotes from my book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: An Oral History of 9/11, following Americans as they experience that day.... amazon.com/Only-Plane-Sky…
Sunny Mindel, Communications Director for the Mayor of the City of New York, Rudy Giuliani: "On September 11th, I was facing what I thought would be an easy day."
.@katiecouric, anchor, @TODAYshow: It was the perfect fall day, a little touch of autumn in the air. It was one of those back-to-school September days, full of possibilities, and, in its own way, a new beginning.
Read 62 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Nov 4, 2022
THREAD: The GOP knows it no longer can win free & fair national elections, and it’s doing everything it can to lock in its ability to rule as a minority.

It's a coordinated effort with 12 unique strategies I outline here in my new newsletter: .... doomsdayscenario.co/p/minority-rul…
The American system has been based on majority rule with protection for the rights of the minority—today, we’re seeing something more like the opposite. Here's how I think about the key parts of the GOP’s big-picture strategy to undermine American democracy...:
1) Open embrace of white nationalist, anti-immigrant, and antisemitism politics. The GOP understands its base is shrinking and it needs to militarize them in order to continue to hold power.... doomsdayscenario.co/p/minority-rul…
Read 16 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Nov 2, 2022
THREAD: I just published the first half of my inaugural newsletter essay, looking at America's failure of imagination and the GOP plot to enshrine minority rule in America. You can read the essay and sign up for the newsletter here: doomsdayscenario.co/p/the-coordina…
1) I've been playing around with this piece for nearly a year now and it captures my big-picture thoughts about how we're underestimating the risks to American democracy over the years ahead....
2) I’ve argued for the last year that we misunderstand what a “new” civil war might look like—imagining it has to look like the “old” Civil War, beginning with earnest men meeting in major cities and state capitals to draft formal articles of succession....
Read 7 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Oct 14, 2022
THREAD: In @SenatorLeahy's new memoir, there's a wild story in it that I haven't ever seen before—a rare glimpse into the shadowy way that the intel agencies interact with Members of Congress. It feels ripped from a political thriller movie...: phoenixbooks.biz/book/978198215…
1) In the midst of the Iraq War debate, Leahy was one of the few Senators pushing back against the Bush admin race to war and the threats of WMDs. He'd been reading the classified intel that the Bush admin was providing to Congress and had real doubts that it justified war....
2) The Sunday after he read the intel, he was out walking with his wife in his McLean neighborhood when "two fit joggers trailed behind us. They stopped and asked what I thought of the intelligence briefings I'd been getting."...
Read 11 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Sep 9, 2022
THREAD: As we near Sunday's 21st anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to share the podcast I did last year about the lingering questions of that tragic day.

What happened on Sept 11 and how it changed our world remains the most important story of the modern age....
The history we've come to tell of that day is incomplete—and sometimes wrong. "Long Shadow" examines the enduring mysteries that still surround 9/11 and it's a different history than you likely remember—but one that will help you make sense of the world the attacks left behind.…
Episode #1: Why weren’t more people rescued from the Twin Towers? Why did these iconic structures and architectural marvels fall so fast?
Google: podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6L…

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lon…
Read 10 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Aug 31, 2022
SHORT THREAD here on something I haven't seen someone else comment on: The strangest document in this photo, the orange bordered "Secret//SCI" one in the foreground. "Secret//SCI" is an incredibly rare marking....
1) I checked today with three officials who have worked at the absolute highest levels of the US intelligence community and two of them had *NEVER* seen such a marked document in their careers.

"SCI" material is usually so sensitive that it is almost always "Top Secret"....
2) It's impossible to know what type of document might be "Secret//SCI" but that highly unique combination of markings implies it's a piece of intelligence where someone was paying extremely special and precise attention to the information inside.
Read 11 tweets

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