Saturday, May 15, 2010

Five best books on statesmen

Evan Thomas is the author of The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst and the Rush to Empire, 1898.

For the Wall Street Journal he named a five best list of books on statesmen. One title on the list:
Present at the Creation
by Dean Acheson

Most people, when they are in the midst of history being made, are too caught up in the moment to see its larger meaning. Not the great American statesman Dean Acheson: His aptly named autobiography captures the precise date, on Feb. 27, 1947, when the duties of Pax Britannica passed to Pax Americana. Britain on that day told the U.S. that the British were no longer able to help protect Turkey and Greece from Soviet expansion; America was on its own. "We drank a martini or two to the confusion of our enemies," recorded Acheson, who would go on to become secretary of state (1949-53). Written with grandeur, verve and a certain puckish delight, "Present at the Creation" is the frankest and most gripping work by a statesman since Ulysses S. Grant's 1885 autobiography.
Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue