David Halberstams 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 Americas flawed policy makers and accounts of the forces that drove them,The Best and the Brightestreckons magnificently with the most important abiding question of our countrys 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 As the definitive single-volume answer to that question, this enthralling book has never been superseded.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 forThe Best and the Brightest

The most comprehensive saga of how America became involved in Vietnam. . . . It is also theIliadof the American empire and theOdysseyof this nations search for its idealistic soul.The Best and the Brightestis 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.LosAngelesTimes

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 Halberstams performance. . . . This is in all ways an admirable and necessary book.Newsweek

A story every American should read.St. Louis Post-Dispatch