The Wise Men

By Walter Isaacson, Evan Thomas

Categories: History

The Wise Men (1986), by journalists Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, is a group biography of six American officials who shaped U.S. foreign policy after the Second World War. Dean Acheson, Charles Bohlen, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Robert Lovett and John McCloy helped build the Marshall Plan, NATO and the strategy of containing the Soviet Union. The authors follow their friendships and rivalries from their elite educations to their role in the Cold War and the Vietnam War.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “It is a book I read as a young man and loved. It’s excellent. You really will enjoy it.”