War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals.

"The Best and the Brightest," the author's landmark inquiry into American involvement in Vietnam, was published in 1972, and now, almost thirty years later, Halberstam has produced a kind of sequel. Beginning in 1991, with George H. W. Bush seemingly poised to win reëlection by an overwhelming margin, this account explores the ways in which the fall of the Soviet Union recalibrated American foreign policy and left many longtime hawks rudderless. Because members of the Bush and, especially, the Clinton Administrations were often reluctant to resort to force in the face of international unrest, the book, like the era it chronicles, lacks the epic sweep of its predecessor. But Halberstam's cautionary tale seems particularly prescient in the wake of the recent attacks on New York and Washington; the American response to global terrorism is being shaped by the same forces—and, in many cases, the same people—examined here.