Currently reading
Hieroglyph: Stories and Blueprints for a Better Future
Ukraine: Zbig's Grand Chessboard & How the West Was Checkmated
The Girl on the Train: A Novel
Our Souls at Night: A novel
Above the Waterfall
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction
The Homicide Report: Understanding Murder in America
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
The Gods of Mars
Dallek is a gifted writer and this is both a very entertaining and informative read. It is the personalities of the two men that defined so much of what they did and Dallek pays particular attention to that. And these are definitely two characters with lots of personality, whatever one may think of their politics. I have one quibble. I felt at times that I was being buried in detail and that the book could have been a lot easier to invest time in had it not had over 600 pages of actual text. That said, it was a worthwhile journey and makes it even clearer how our nation’s policies can be so determined by political needs and personality flaws. How much effort was expended, and how much opportunity might have been lost had Kissinger not been such a preening Prima Dona, ever involved in keeping our actual Secretary of State on the sidelines. How much could the experience of the 60’s and 70’s changed had Nixon not been such a paranoiac? In pointing out the impact of their ego issues on world affairs, Dallek reminds us that the insanity that is the Bush administration stands on the shoulders of other crazy people.