Don't Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't Know Much About®) (110 page)

Hackworth, Col. David H., and Julie Sherman.
About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. A fascinating best-selling account of a soldier who fought in both Korea and Vietnam and became something of a renegade in Southeast Asia.

Haing Ngor.
A Cambodian Odyssey.
New York: Macmillan, 1987. A riveting first-person account of the aftermath of the fall of Cambodia to communists, by the doctor turned actor who portrayed the character of Dith Pran in the film
The Killing Fields.

Halberstam, David.
The Best and the Brightest.
New York: Random House, 1972. The classic account of the intellectuals and academics surrounding Kennedy who pushed America into Vietnam.

Hersh, Seymour M.
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath.
New York: Random House, 1970. The journalist who broke the story and won the Pulitzer Prize recounts the entire episode.

———.
The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.
New York: Summit, 1983. A harshly critical account of the president and his powerful adviser and their approach to the wars in Southeast Asia.

Karnow, Stanley.
Vietnam: A History.
New York: Viking Penguin, 1983. An indispensable one-volume overview of the war in Vietnam.

Langguth, A. J.
Our Vietnam: The War, 1954–1975.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. An excellent narrative history of the whole war by a former
New York Times
war correspondent.

Lukas, J. Anthony.
Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years.
New York: Viking, 1976. A full and comprehensive account of the Watergate years, and the definitive work on the fall of Nixon.

Malcolm X, with Alex Haley.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
New York: Grove, 1964. A contemporary American classic: the story of a young man who rose from crime to become one of the most influential Americans in a generation.

Miller, Merle.
Lyndon: An Oral Biography.
New York: Putnam, 1980. The president’s own words on his life and administration.

Posner, Gerald.
Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK.
New York: Random House, 1993. Unambiguously and convincingly argues the case for Oswald’s being the lone assassin in the killing of JFK.

Safire, William.
Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975. Safire, who was a speechwriter for Nixon and later a columnist for the
New York Times
, presents a vivid view of Nixon in power before the fallout from Watergate.

Scheer, Robert.
With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War.
New York: Random House, 1982. A disturbing examination of Reagan’s stance regarding arms and the “winnability” of a nuclear war.

Schieffer, Bob, and Gary Paul Gates.
The Acting President.
New York: Dutton, 1989. A television newsman’s overview of eight years of Reagan that provides a useful capsule of the period, including the Iran-contra situation.

Schlesinger, Arthur M.
A Thousand Days: JFK in the White House.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. A partisan insider, the famous historian writes a fascinating view of Kennedy’s presidency.

Shilts, Randy.
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic.
New York: St. Martin’s, 1999. One of the first books to examine the history of AIDS; highly critical of the medical and political response to the crisis.

Smith, Hedrick.
The Power Game: How Washington Works.
New York: Random House, 1988. A fascinating portrait of the real reins of power in Washington and how they are manipulated; especially useful in assessing the failures and successes of the Reagan administration.

Srodes, James.
Allen Dulles: Master of Spies.
Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1999. Massive biography of the man who essentially created the CIA and, with his brother, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, guided American foreign policy during the cold war.

Sumners, Harry G.
Vietnam War Almanac.
New York: Facts on File, 1985. An encyclopedic reference guide to the war, complete with maps, historical introduction, and a detailed chronology.

The Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President’s Special Review Board: Introduction by R. W. Apple, Jr.
New York: Bantam, 1987. The damning examination of Reagan’s failures in allowing the Iran-contra scandal to occur.

White, Theodore.
America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President, 1956–1980.
New York: Harper and Row, 1982. A compilation of the author’s “Making of” series, assessing the presidents of the past thirty-five years.

Wyden, Peter.
Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. This compelling narrative account tells the complete story of the disastrous invasion of Castro’s Cuba.

CHAPTER 9. FROM THE EVIL EMPIRE TO THE AXIS OF EVIL

Bennett, William J.
Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and Terrorism.
New York: Doubleday, 2002. A defense of the post–September 11 war against terror in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.

Beschloss, Michael R., and Strobe Talbott.
At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. An exhaustive account of what may have been the biggest story of the twentieth century, the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Bovard, James.
Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty.
New York: St. Martin’s/Palgrave, 2000. A provocative indictment of the abuses of citizens by government agencies.

Bobbitt, Philip.
The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History.
New York: Knopf, 2002.

———.
Terror and Consent: The Wars of the Twenty-First Century.
New York: Knopf, 2008.

Bugliosi, Vincent.
The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose the President.
New York: Thunder’s Mouth/Nation, 2001. A highly partisan view of the role of the Supreme Court in deciding the 2000 election.

Cassidy, John.
How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. An economist explains the severe downturns in recent American history.

Clarke, Richard A.
Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror.
New York: Free Press, 2004. The controversial account by a member of the security team under Clinton and Bush of the failures preceding the 9/11 attacks.

Cullen, Dave.
Columbine.
New York: Twelve/Grand Central, 2009. An in-depth look at the Columbine massacre that debunks many of the commonly held notions about the two high school boys who were responsible.

Dionne, E. J., Jr., and William Kristol, eds.
Bush v. Gore: The Court Cases and the Commentary.
Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001. A collection of the court decisions and editorial commentary by prominent journalists and scholars on both sides of the legal divide.

Drew, Elizabeth.
The Corruption of American Politics: What Went Wrong and Why.
Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook, 2000. A veteran Washington correspondent’s revealing look at the role of campaign financing in American politics.

Dwyer, Jim, and Kevin Flynn.
102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers.
Times Books/Henry Holt, 2005. Often heart-wrenching journalistic account of the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Ehrenreich, Barbara.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
New York: Henry Holt, 2001. Brilliantly examining the underside of the “new economy,” a reporter works in America’s world of minimum-wage jobs.

Eichenwald, Kurt.
Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story.
New York: Broadway Books, 2005. The Enron story, by an award-winning financial reporter.

Farmer, John.
The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11.
New York: Riverhead/Penguin, 2009. Written by a member of the Presidential Commission in the aftermath of revelations that the commission did not get full information during its investigations.

Ferguson, Charles H.
No End in Sight: Iraq’s Descent into Chaos.
New York: Public Affairs, 2008. Based on a documentary film showing the mismanagement of the invasion and ensuing occupation of Iraq.

Filkins, Dexter.
The Forever War.
New York: Knopf, 2008. The
New York Times
correspondent’s coverage of the first chaotic years of the Iraq War.

Fox, Justin.
The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street.
New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

Frazier, Ian.
On the Rez.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. A reporter’s unsparing look at contemporary Indian life on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Friedman, Thomas L.
From Beirut to Jerusalem.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989 (updated 1995). A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist’s account of Middle East politics; excellent background on the history of the region and America’s involvement in regional politics.

Gitlin, Todd.
Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives.
New York: Metropolitan, 2001.

Gordon, Michael R., and General Bernard E. Trainor.
Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.
New York: Pantheon, 2006. Excellent overview by the Pentagon correspondent (Gordon) and military columnist (Trainor) of the
New York Times.

Halberstam, David.
War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals.
New York: Scribner, 2001. Masterful account by the late journalist of two presidents, their relationships with the military, and their wars, in post-Vietnam America.

Heilemann, John, and Mark Halperin.
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.
New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Two journalists’ inside account of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Hersh, Seymour M.
Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.
New York: HarperCollins, 2004. The award-winning investigative journalist’s account of the abuses inside an Iraqi prison under U.S. Army control.