The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It by Richard Hofstadter (Vintage, $15). These brilliantly crafted and iconoclastic biographical essays illuminate important American political figures, including FDR, Wilson, TR, Lincoln, and the Founders. A classic by a great historian.
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Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision by Roberta Wohlstetter (Stanford, $28). Anyone who believes that public officials can safely guard against surprise attacks—or terrorism—will do well to read this book, a highly informed account of the formidable obstacles to the gathering and analysis of intelligence about Japanese intentions prior to Pearl Harbor.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Picador, $14). A moving recent novel that captures the emotions and concerns of an Iowa man in the 1950s; from there it transports us imaginatively to the rural worlds of his father and grandfather, who fought in the Civil War. Robinson is wonderful at evoking the time and place of her characters.
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (Bantam, $15). This is Wolfe at his best. The book, focusing on America’s early space program, is more broadly a shrewd, often hilariously funny commentary on American culture in the 1950s.
U.S.A. by John Dos Passos (Library of America, $40). A trilogy of innovative novels by one of America’s leading writers of the 1920s and ’30s. They offer a dazzling, often deeply critical view of American life—as well as impressionistic brief biographies of important early-20th-century figures.
From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality