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The Best and the Brightest

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The Best and the Brightest

By: David Halberstam
Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
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About this listen

David Halberstam’s masterpiece, the defining history of the making of the Vietnam tragedy, with a new Foreword by Senator John McCain.

"A rich, entertaining, and profound reading experience.”—The New York Times

Using portraits of America’ s flawed policy makers and accounts of the forces that drove them, The Best and the Brightest reckons magnificently with the most important abiding question of our country’ s recent history: Why did America become mired in Vietnam, and why did we lose? As the definitive single-volume answer to that question, this enthralling book has never been superseded. It is an American classic.

Praise for The Best and the Brightest

“The most comprehensive saga of how America became involved in Vietnam. . . . It is also the Iliad of the American empire and the Odyssey of this nation’s search for its idealistic soul. The Best and the Brightest is almost like watching an Alfred Hitchcock thriller.”The Boston Globe

“Deeply moving . . . We cannot help but feel the compelling power of this narrative. . . . Dramatic and tragic, a chain of events overwhelming in their force, a distant war embodying illusions and myths, terror and violence, confusions and courage, blindness, pride, and arrogance.”Los Angeles Times

“A fascinating tale of folly and self-deception . . . [An] absorbing, detailed, and devastatingly caustic tale of Washington in the days of the Caesars.”The Washington Post Book World

“Seductively readable . . . It is a staggeringly ambitious undertaking that is fully matched by Halberstam’s performance. . . . This is in all ways an admirable and necessary book.”Newsweek

“A story every American should read.”St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Americas Military Politics & Government United States War Vietnam War Dwight Eisenhower Soviet Union Imperial Japan Socialism China Russia Franklin D Roosevelt Imperialism Capitalism

Critic reviews

"A rich, entertaining, and profound reading experience.”The New York Times

“The most comprehensive saga of how America became involved in Vietnam. . . . It is also the Iliad of the American empire and the Odyssey of this nation’s search for its idealistic soul. The Best and the Brightest is almost like watching an Alfred Hitchcock thriller.”The Boston Globe

“Deeply moving . . . We cannot help but feel the compelling power of this narrative. . . . Dramatic and tragic, a chain of events overwhelming in their force, a distant war embodying illusions and myths, terror and violence, confusions and courage, blindness, pride, and arrogance.”Los Angeles Times

“A fascinating tale of folly and self-deception . . . [An] absorbing, detailed, and devastatingly caustic tale of Washington in the days of the Caesars.”The Washington Post Book World

“Seductively readable . . . It is a staggeringly ambitious undertaking that is fully matched by Halberstam’s performance. . . . This is in all ways an admirable and necessary book.”Newsweek

“A story every American should read.”St. Louis Post-Dispatch
All stars
Most relevant
Incredibly in depth review of US involvement in Vietnam which was always fascinating and never boring.

Wonderful read

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This book is sensationally good. One of the best uses of 34 odd hours of my life. Rich narrative, profoundly convincing, deeply sad. Definitive book on the Vietnam War and how the US got bogged down in it and the failings that led to that.

Utterly brilliant book

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Required reading for anyone capable of thinking for themselves. Tragic and absolutely riveting.
Supreme Halberstam.


The sadness, lies, delusion and hubris.

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This book is a brilliant presentation of the dangers of the rigorous reliance hubris vs the rigorous adherence to balanced analysis. This work is a must read for all those in a position to make critical decisions that effect lives … in all of its forms.

Do what is right … not easy ….

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Details and all the key players. Maybe it was possible to carry out the thesis of where things went wrong (intellectual hubris) in a bit of a shortened road, but the level of detail and amount of sources lends a lot of credibility to the project.

Thorough exposition

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