 | Bismarck: The Man and Statesman by A.J.P. Taylor
Buy used from: $1.69 Here are some biographies that I think are a "must-read". Of course, I still haven't read all of them, but I'm sure I will eventually manage to do that. In the meanwhile, here is my list :)
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 | Talleyrand by Duff Cooper
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $5.21 I'll review as many of these books as I can, in due time. Meanwhile, I'll put an asterisk next to those I've already reviewed :)
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 | The Life of Samuel Johnson (Penguin Classics) by James Boswell
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $0.01 "Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 and died in 1784--a long life, though one marred by depression and fear of death" (ed.review). This book includes some of his most well-known quotes.
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 | A la Recherche de Marcel Proust (French Edition) by Andre Maurois
Buy new: $9.67 / Used from: $36.40 |
 | Sketches from a Life by George Frost Kennan
Buy new: $11.66 / Used from: $2.25 "This is a collection of very private reflections spanning some 60 years of foreign service in Nazi Germany,the Baltic states,the Low Countries,the Soviet Union,as well as nonofficial travels (...)"
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 | Truman by David McCullough
Buy new: $15.84 / Used from: $2.14 "This warm biography of Harry Truman is both an historical evaluation of his presidency and a paean to the man's rock-solid American values" (ed.review). This book won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize.
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 | Eisenhower: Soldier and President (The Renowned One-Volume Life) by Stephen E. Ambrose
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $1.30 "In this admiring and enormously readable revision/condensation of his acclaimed two-volume biography, published in 1983 and 1984 (...)". "This is the definitive one-volume biography of Eisenhower"
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 | The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made by Walter Isaacson
Buy new: $14.96 / Used from: $7.90 This books is about"the role of six policymakersDean Acheson, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, John McCloy Jr., Charles Bohlen, Robert Lovettin" after WWII in America's foreign policy.
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 | Conversations with Stalin by Milovan Djilas
Buy new: $10.40 / Used from: $1.74 |
 | Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Buy used from: $2.89 "Relying on Stalin'spersonal correspondence with his family and his "magnates," as Montefiore terms the dictator's lieutenants, the author liberally quotes letters, memoirs, and interviews"(ed.review)
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 | China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia by James R. Lilley
Buy used from: $0.84 "James Lilley, who served in various posts all over East Asia, offers firsthand accounts of America's crude"gunboat, oil can, and Bible"diplomacy in Asia at the turn of the last century(...)"(ed.rev)
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 | The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy by Strobe Talbott
Buy new: $12.71 / Used from: $3.39 "In this memoir of his years in the State Department, Talbott traces the evolving relationship between Clinton and the mercurial Yeltsin (...)" (ed.review)
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 | Chances of a Lifetime: A Memoir by Warren Christopher
Buy used from: $0.01 Christopher doesn't reveal much about his personal life on the pages, but he does impart lessons learned from a life in public office"
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 | Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson
Buy new: $14.93 / Used from: $1.85 "Present at the Creation is a densely detailed account of Acheson's diplomatic career, delineated in intricately eloquent prose" (ed.review).
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 | Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile by Joseph Pearce
Buy new: $13.59 / Used from: $3.91 " Pearce details Solzhenitsyn's transformation from an ardently Marxist youth into a literary anachronism in post-Soviet Russia" (ed. review)
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 | A Political Life: Norberto Bobbio
Buy new: $29.95 / Used from: $0.75 |
 | Bush Hat, Black Tie: Adventures of a Foreign Service Officer by Howard R. Simpson
Buy used from: $1.60 * The author peppers serious observation regarding policy matters with funny anecdotes.
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 | The World's Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Penguin Press)) by Sebastian Mallaby
Buy used from: $0.32 |
 | Madam Secretary: A Memoir by Madeleine Albright
Buy new: $27.95 / Used from: $0.01 "Albright proposes to "combine the personal with policy" in these memoirs, a sensible narrative strategy" (ed.review)
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 | My American Journey by Colin L. Powell
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 "The eminently readable journey of one African American boy from a close-knit neighborhood in the South Bronx through his rise to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to civilian retirement" (ed.rev)
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 | Man Without A Face by Markus Wolf
Buy new: $16.77 / Used from: $2.11 "East Germany had one of the most successful intelligence services of the Communist bloc, headed by the notorious Wolf, rumored to be the model for John le Carre's evil Karla" (ed. review)
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 | To End a War (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Richard Holbrooke
Buy new: $15.25 / Used from: $2.31 "Without being a crusader, Holbrooke stresses throughout the need for responsible public service (...)" (ed.review)
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 | Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Buy new: $21.56 / Used from: $0.01 * (2004) Gabriel Garcia Marquez says that "Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it." And that is, in few words, "Living to tell the tale"...
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 | The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
Buy new: $9.49 / Used from: $4.06 * This is clearly NOT a book, but gives excellent insight into the life of R. McNamara. The "actor"? McNamara himself!
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Listmania!
