Stephen L. Carter's 6 favorite books about the Cold War

The best-selling novelist recommends works by Norman Mailer, David Halberstam, and more

Carter

The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis (Penguin, $17). Gaddis is the most insightful Cold War historian of them all, and this monumental work is quite possibly his best. He writes as a historian should, without worrying about pleasing the Left or the Right, while overturning received notions with rigorous evidence and thoughtful argument.

Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer (Random House, $17). This was the controversial first volume of a longer saga that Mailer did not live long enough to finish. It's told principally through the eyes of a disillusioned Central Intelligence Agency officer who's pondering the lifetime he spent battling Communism.

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