1960s
20th century
A01=Philip Taubman
A01=William Taubman
Author_Philip Taubman
Author_William Taubman
bio
biography
cabinet
Category=DNBH
Category=DND
Category=JPHL
Category=NH
Category=NHK
Category=NHWR9
diplomacy
dod
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
geopolitics
jacqueline kennedy
jfk
lbj
military
military history
pentagon
robert mcnamara
secdef
secretary of defense
united states
us history
vietnam war
Product details
- ISBN 9781324007166
- Weight: 866g
- Dimensions: 163 x 244mm
- Publication Date: 23 Sep 2025
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Robert S. McNamara was widely considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his generation. While he could be cold and arrogant, he was an invaluable friend to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and had a deeply moving relationship with Jackie Kennedy. McNamara was the leading advocate for American escalation in Vietnam, even after he concluded that the war was unwinnable.
In McNamara at War, Philip and William Taubman trace McNamara’s career from a young faculty member at Harvard Business School and his Second World War service to his leadership of the Ford Motor Company and the World Bank. McNamara at War is a portrait of a man at war with himself—riven by melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty and a profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam.
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
