Skip to Main Content

About The Book

The Wise Men introduces the original brightest and best, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt’s special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, author of Containment; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense during the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation’s most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

About The Authors

No credit

Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane and was CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.

Photo Credit:

Evan Thomas is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers JOHN PAUL JONES, SEA OF THUNDER, and FIRST: SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years as Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. He appears regularly on many TV and radio talk shows. Thomas has taught at Harvard and Princeton.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 1, 2013)
  • Length: 864 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781476728827

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

“A wealth of new information and insights on the people and events that shaped the first four decades of the Cold War.”

– The Boston Globe

“Must be read if we are to understand the postwar world.”

– Robert A. Caro, author of Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

“Isaacson and Thomas have fashioned a Cold War Plutarch.”

– San Francisco Chronicle

“A richly textured account of a class and of a historical period.”

– New York Times Book Review

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images