War in a Time of Peace
Bush, Clinton, and the Generals
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam chronicles Washington politics and foreign policy in post Cold War America.
Evoking the internal conflicts, unchecked egos, and power struggles within the White House, the State Department, and the military, Halberstam shows how the decisions of men who served in the Vietnam War, and those who did not, have shaped America's role in global events. He provides fascinating portraits of those in power—Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Kissinger, James Baker, Dick Cheney, Madeleine Albright, and others—to reveal a stunning view of modern political America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Events and personalities clash in this extraordinary sequel to Halberstam's classic examination of America's road to Vietnam, The Best and the Brightest (to be reissued in September by Modern Library). Thirty years on, the world is a different place; no longer clearly divided between good guys (us) and bad guys (the Soviets), the danger lies in local wars of ethnic and nationalist hatreds. If America, looking inward and little concerned with the wider world, was too quick to use power in Vietnam, it is now too confused if not too unwilling to know how to use it. Bush the elder, despite his triumph in the Gulf War, is replaced by Clinton, a leader more in tune with America's desires. But the world will not go away: disaster strikes in Somalia as a dead American soldier is dragged through the streets for the world to see. The military are confirmed in their distrust of the brash politician Clinton, a "flirt and seducer," and harden their resistance especially Colin Powell's to the commitment of U.S. military power without a clear plan and purpose. With all of this in play, Halberstam's central story unfolds: the U.S. reaction to the crimes and aggression of the Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic. Clinton advisors and the military thrust and parry for years as the carnage continues, and while eventually a U.S.-dominated air war does drive Milosevic from power, the broader question of America's role in a new world remains unanswered. This is vintage Halberstam, combining sharp portraits of the political players Bush, Clinton, Powell, Madeleine Albright, and so many others with nuanced reportage of the events they shape and are shaped by.
