From two of America's most revered political journalists comes the definitive biography of legendary White House chief of staff and secretary of state James A. Baker III: the man who ran Washington when Washington ran the world.
For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a page-turning portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations.
A scion of Texas aristocracy who became George H. W. Bush's best friend on the tennis courts of the Houston Country Club, Baker had never even worked in Washington until a devastating family tragedy struck when he was thirty-nine. Within a few years, he was leading Gerald Ford's campaign and would go on to manage a total of five presidential races and win a sixth for George W. Bush in a Florida recount. He ran Ronald Reagan's White House and became the most consequential secretary of state since Henry Kissinger. He negotiated with Democrats at home and Soviets abroad, rewrote the tax code, assembled the coalition that won the Gulf War, brokered the reunification of Germany and helped bring a decades-long nuclear superpower standoff to an end. Ruthlessly partisan during campaign season, Baker governed as the avatar of pragmatism over purity and deal-making over division, a lost art in today's fractured nation.
His story is a case study in the acquisition, exercise, and preservation of power in late twentieth-century America and the story of Washington and the world in the modern era--how it once worked and how it has transformed into an era of gridlock and polarization. This masterly biography by two brilliant observers of the American political scene is destined to become a classic.
2 有用 Marni 2022-03-15 17:31:36
贝克本身经历极多,相较其达到的成就,这本书太浮于表面,很多关键上位节点没有写透,比如,作为一个外来户,他最初怎么与迪克·切尼等人取得如此深厚的信任?比如,他做了什么,才能从一个商务部副部长,变成总统内阁明星?再比如,作者竟然不知道老布什与南美反政府武装的关系有多么深,这是政治作家应该有的知识储备量吗?
0 有用 Lin 2022-05-31 23:49:59
Statesman阅读系列,80年代最牛逼的rainmaker
0 有用 Karanliu 2023-11-11 08:14:09 浙江
Strongly recommend this biography. The most successful campaign manager.
0 有用 气球 2020-12-19 15:01:42
发现好多剧情的原型都在这呢,豁然开朗,好读
0 有用 Karanliu 2023-11-11 08:14:09 浙江
Strongly recommend this biography. The most successful campaign manager.
0 有用 Lin 2022-05-31 23:49:59
Statesman阅读系列,80年代最牛逼的rainmaker
2 有用 Marni 2022-03-15 17:31:36
贝克本身经历极多,相较其达到的成就,这本书太浮于表面,很多关键上位节点没有写透,比如,作为一个外来户,他最初怎么与迪克·切尼等人取得如此深厚的信任?比如,他做了什么,才能从一个商务部副部长,变成总统内阁明星?再比如,作者竟然不知道老布什与南美反政府武装的关系有多么深,这是政治作家应该有的知识储备量吗?
0 有用 气球 2020-12-19 15:01:42
发现好多剧情的原型都在这呢,豁然开朗,好读