544 pages | 23rd September, 2025 | Non-fiction | History
A revelatory portrait of Robert S. McNamara, informed by newly discovered diaries, letters, and interviews with those closest to him.
Robert S. McNamara was widely considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his generation. While he could be cold and arrogant, he was an invaluable friend to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson as US secretary of defense and had a deeply moving relationship with Jackie Kennedy. McNamara was the leading advocate for American escalation in Vietnam during the summer of 1965, strongly urging Johnson to send hundreds of thousands of American ground troops just weeks before he concluded that the war was unwinnable. For the next two and a half years, despite his doubts, he failed to urge Johnson to cut his losses and withdraw.
In McNamara at War, Philip and William Taubman examine McNamara’s life of intense personal contradictions. They trace his career from a young faculty member at Harvard Business School and his World War II service to his leadership of the Ford Motor Company and the World Bank. McNamara at War is a portrait of a man at war with himself—riven by melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and a profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late.
"Major achievement of research and writing."
Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs Books
"Excellent and probing about one of the central figures of the Vietnam War."
Bob Woodward, author of War
"At last, we have the man in full... A compelling, memorable read. It reveals much about the waging of the Vietnam War as well as the often-baffling labyrinths of human nature."
David Kennedy, author of Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
"Philip and William Taubman's McNamara at War is a compelling biography of McNamara's life... A transfixing tale of tragedy."
Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense 2006-2011
"An exhaustive account of a fascinating man whose high intelligence was matched by his personal complexity."
Anthony Lake, United States National Security Advisor, 1993-1997
William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His book, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of McNamara at War: A New History and Gorbachev: His Life and Times. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Philip Taubman, a former New York Times reporter, is affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is the author of In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz.
US & Audio: W.W. Norton