Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History atHarvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College,Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution,Stanford University. The bestselling author of Paper andIron , The House of Rothschild , The Pity of War , The Cash Nexus , Empire , and Colossus , he alsowrites regularly for newspapers and magazines all over the world.Since 2003 he has written and presented three highly successfultelevision documentary series for British television: Empire , American Colossus , and, most recently, TheWar of the World .

A brilliant and brilliantly entertaining tour de force ofAmerican politics from one of journalism's most acclaimedcommentators. History turns on a dime. A missed meeting, a different choice ofwords, and the outcome changes dramatically. Nowhere is this truerthan in the field where Jeff Greenfield has spent most of hisworking life, American politics, and in three dramatic narrativesbased on memoirs, histories, oral histories, fresh reporting withjournalists and key participants, and Greenfield's own knowledge ofthe principal players, he shows just how extraordinary thosechanges would have been. These things are true: In December 1960, a suicide bomber pausedfatefully when he saw the young president-elect's wife and daughtercome to the door to wave goodbye...In June 1968, RFK declaredvictory in California, and then instead of talking to people inanother ballroom, as intended, was hustled off through thekitchen...In October 1976, President Gerald Ford made a criticalgaffe in a debate against J