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COLLECTIBLE: INDISPENSABLE, SUPERB: FINE Stated First Edition hardcover (Orig. November 1972) First Printing, VG end-papers on excellent cream-white card-stock but Marred front-left w/ date stamp top-right & w/ glue-traces center FE (right), pristine interior printed w/ elegant clarity on superb unblemished silk-finish snow-white paper * 6.62" x 9.46" x 1.54", 1.16 kg, vi+690 (696) pp * ABOUT THE BOOK: The 1960s began w/ great hopes for many Americans, particularly for the nation's youth. A dashing president, the youngest in history, had been elected. The civil rights movement was approaching the peak of its idealism. The Peace Corps had been established & 1000s flocked to join its ranks. Many Americans felt a surge of pride & renewed belief in the country & a renewed sense of patriotism. But, as the decade ended, that infectious faith in the future had turned to anguished doubt. A war in distant Vietnam, a country previously unknown to many, had become the focal point of national life & the obsession of government policy. Political debate was dominated by it. Few could understand how the U.S. had become embroiled in the deadly war. This problem was handed to a group of exceptionally bright men whom John F. Kennedy had brought into government. Many (Robert Mcnamara, McGeorge Bundy, Maxwell Taylor, William Bundy, Dean Rusk) still remain quasi-mythic figures to Americans of that epoch. Said to be the smartest, most capable men assembled since the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, they were quick, clever & self-confident men who had never failed at anything, the leaders at Harvard, the Rockefeller Foundation & other prestigious American institutions. They were the elite of the elite, or, as David Halberstam brilliantly coined it: "the best and the brightest." American aristocrats & those who by brilliance alone had won their way into the inner sanctums of the American establishment, they were all the right people. And they were undone & beaten by a small Asian country where not one person in 10,000 had ever heard of Harvard. And their defeat was the nation's. In the span of a decade, America learned some bitter lessons & gained the wisdom of experience in what was a great watershed in the nation's history & the focal point of America's 20th century. David Halberstam's chronicle of these men & their times, "The Best and the Brightest", is regarded as the finest book ever written about this era, an enormous bestseller, which Newsweek called "a staggeringly ambitious undertaking that is fully matched by Halberstam's performance" & the Library Journal declared "brilliant, imaginatively conceived, lucidly organized & gracefully written." It is profoundly rewarding reading for anyone who seeks to understand the impact of the 1960s on America & is an important, indeed indispensable, addition to any distinguished private library & certainly to any collection of 20th century American history. * SHIPPING: MNEMOSYNE carefully wraps, labels & custom-packages this fine book for FREE domestic shipment via USPS MEDIA MAIL or USPS PRIORITY MAIL for a below-cost additional fee & via USPS FIRST CLASS INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL to international destinations at our posted rates.
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