WRITER, SCHOLAR
At last, we have the man in full. With penetrating insight and capacious sensitivity, the authors give us nothing less than McNamara Agonistes: a vivid portrait of this uncommonly brilliant and uncommonly complex soul tormented by trials of intelligence, will, morality, and loyalty. A compelling, memorable read.
—David Kennedy,
Author of Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
Philip Taubman is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. He served as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief, among other posts. He is author of The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012), Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003), and In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (2023), as well as co-author (with his brother, William Taubman) of McNamara at War: A New History (2025).
NEW RELEASE
W. W. Norton & Co, September 2025
A revelatory portrait of Robert S. McNamara, informed by newly discovered diaries, letters, and interviews with those closest to him.
Robert S. McNamara was widely considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his generation. While he could be cold and arrogant, he was an invaluable friend to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as US secretary of defense and had a deeply moving relationship with Jackie Kennedy. McNamara was the leading advocate for American escalation in the summer of 1965, strongly urging Johnson to send hundreds of thousands of American ground troops to Vietnam, just weeks before McNamara concluded that the war was unwinnable. For the next two and a half years before stepping down, despite his doubts, he failed to urge Johnson to cut his losses and withdraw.
In McNamara at War, Philip and William Taubman examine McNamara’s life of intense personal contradictions. They trace his career from a young faculty member at Harvard Business School and his World War II service to his leadership of the Ford Motor Company and the World Bank. McNamara at War is a portrait of a man at war with himself—riven by melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and a profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late.
From the Archives
: Robert S. McNamara Photos, Videos, Declassified Documents, & More
Philip Taubman consulted a wide range of archival documents and historical sources to write McNamara at War. Here are some of the resources that Taubman used to build his book.
