The Best History Books of January 2018

The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, by Max Boot
Edward Lansdale, CIA agent extraordinaire, is representative of the road not taken in the Vietnam war. Lansdale was already an old hand at espionage when the CIA was chartered, and his success countering an attempted communist uprising in the Philippines made him the obvious choice to get involved with the earliest U.S. interventions in Vietnam. As that war mushroomed into the quagmire history remembers, Lansdale argued fiercely that a better strategy would be counterinsurgency—winning the so-called “hearts and minds” of the people instead of fighting an unwinnable ground war. That argument is just as important today as it was in the 1960s, making this a must-read for anyone concerned about America’s role in the world.

The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, by Niall Ferguson
Ferguson argues history is really the story of various networks—and the technologies that disrupted them—he points out that the printing press was the disruptive technology that allowed the Protestant revolution to take shape, and his examination of other networks throughout history are equally fascinating. From the Illuminati to the Rothschilds to Wikileaks, Ferguson sees this pattern of established networks smashing against the rocks of progress over and over again, offering up some “Freakonomics”-style alternative interpretations of history along the way.

Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman
Israel’s Mossad is widely considered to be one of—if not the—most effective intelligence organizations in the world, and the Israel Defense Force, one of the most effective armed forces. But what has set Israel apart from other nations is its unrepentant embrace of targeted, state-sponsored assassination in the service of national survival. Bergman leverages access to some of the most important players in Israel’s government, intelligence services, and military to craft a definitive history of a nation that much of the world wishes to destroy, and the extraordinary means undertaken in its defense. His inclusion of extremely detailed descriptions of operations gives this book a bit of a thriller edge, while never losing sight of the ethical quandary these policies inevitably spark.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD, by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis
In just about every detail, Timothy Leary’s life reads like a novel: a Harvard professor who embraced the drugs and free love of the 1960s (with a particular love and endorsement of LSD), Leary was seen as a class traitor by much of the establishment. When he was arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana, he received a harsh sentence so he could be an example—but he leveraged his powerful network to make his escape, fleeing to South America where he and his wife lived under the protection of the Black Panthers as President Nixon raged and used all the power of the U.S. government to track him down. Leary—a symbol of the peace and love hippie movement—found himself smack in the midst of the violent, sour end of the ’60s ethos, surrounded by gun-toting revolutionaries—but this was just the first stop of a nearly-unbelievable adventure you have to read to believe.

Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House, by Joshua Zeitz
Anyone watching the current lack of movement in Washington, DC might be forgiven for thinking this is just the way it is. But it wasn’t always this way, as this detailed account of the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson proves. Once the most powerful and skilled majority leader the senate had ever seen, Johnson became a president of contradictions, who nonetheless used his political skill, imposing personality, and power of his office to craft and guide some of the most meaningful legislation ever drafted. From the Civil Right Act to the establishment of Medicare, Johnson achieved incredible things in his six years in office, while at the same time becoming terminally associated with Vietnam, which ultimately destroyed him. Zeitz goes behind the scenes to examine the many strong personalities that surrounded Johnson in his administration.

An Unlikely Trust: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Improbable Partnership That Remade American Business, by Gerard Helferich
In this age of the Hot Take, it’s important to keep in mind that learning the real story often takes decades, if not centuries. In the earliest days of the 20th century, J.P. Morgan and Theodore Roosevelt were both men who transformed aspects of American life—Morgan reinvented the concept of the corporation, crafting the modern concept of the sprawling business with a mind (and political rights) of its own, while Roosevelt expanded the power and authority of the presidency to unprecedented levels. Helferich makes his case that, far from the natural enemies they should have been, Morgan and Roosevelt shared enough common ground that they worked together as partners very effectively—and avoided disaster many times due solely to their willingness to do so.

The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Every now and then, history presents us with a life that seems almost impossible to believe. Such is the case with Billy Gawronski, who attempted to stow away on Richard Byrd’s famous 1928 expedition to the Antarctic. Discovered and expelled three times, Gawronski finally convinced Byrd to let him join the crew—thus capturing the public’s imagination. Gawronski was seen to represent the can-do, no-fear American spirit, and he continued to do so throughout the rest of his life, which including distinguished service commanding a warship in World War II. Shapiro offers a detailed look at Gawronski’s crewmates on the Byrd expedition—perhaps the last time an earthbound explorer was able to so dominate the public’s interest.

Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires, by Shomari Wills
For some uncurious minds, the story of black America starts with slavery and jumps to the present day, with only a vague stopover in the 1960s Civil Rights movement. Wills takes a look at a little-known facet of the black experience in America by examining the lives of six black Americans who were each among the richest in the country before, during, and after the Civil War. Their stories might be surprising to modern audiences—Robert Reed Church, who was once the largest landowner in Tennessee; Annie Turnbo-Malone, who invented the first nationally-marketed brand of hair care products using her self-taught chemistry skills; and her employee C.J. Walker, known as “America’s first female black millionaire.”