Washington Goes to War - Hardcover

Brinkley, David

4.04

517 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517382113 ISBN 13: 9780517382110

Publisher: Random House Value Publishing, 1999

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Though it is today the hub of international affairs and government, Washington, D.C. was once little more than a small Southern town that happened to host our nationally elected officials. Award-winning journalist David Brinkley remembers what it was like--how Washington awoke from its slumber and found itself with a war on its hands. Washington had to print the paper, alphabetize the bureaucracies, host the parties, pitch the propaganda, write the laws, launch the drives, draft the boys, hire the "government girls," and engage in an often hilarious administrative war of words, wit, and even wisdom.
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Review:

This book of the just-retired newsman's reminiscences of Washington at the dawn of America's involvement in World War II is no mere historical curiosity shop. It's very instructive about the way Washington still works. For instance, Brinkley tells us that in September 1941, while FDR was still wavering about where to put the military's new headquarters building, an Army general told the contractor to get started. By the time Roosevelt found out about this a month later, the foundations for the Pentagon had already been put in place.

From the Back Cover:

"[Brinkley] is an excellent raconteur, and his book--a combination of memoir and popular history--consists of an amiable, extraordinarily readable anecdotal narrative, running from the late 1930s through V-J Day."--Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times Book World

"Astonishing. . . Told with endearing detail . . . He knows his Washington well."--The New York Times Book Review

"HILARIOUS AND INSTRUCTIVE . . . Brinkley has written an impressionist history, comparable to a pointillist painting composed of small points of color that, seen whole, comprise a remarkably truthful record of reality."--George F. Will, The Washington Post

"EVOCATIVE . . . One gets the sense that he was everywhere in Washington, with a bird's-eye view of the show from start to finish. . . . A grand and moving drama."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

"A wonderful read for those of us who lived through it. It should be even better for those who are too young to remember."--The Washington Monthly

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