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Evan Thomas

Biography

Evan Thomas

Evan Thomas is the author of 10 books: THE WISE MEN (with Walter Isaacson), THE MAN TO SEE, THE VERY BEST MEN, ROBERT KENNEDY, JOHN PAUL JONES, SEA OF THUNDER, THE WAR LOVERS, IKE'S BLUFF, BEING NIXON and FIRST. JOHN PAUL JONES and SEA OF THUNDER were New York Times bestsellers.

Thomas was a writer, correspondent and editor for 33 years at Time and Newsweek, including 10 years (1986-96) as Washington bureau chief at Newsweek, where, at the time of his retirement in 2010, he was editor at large. He wrote more than 100 cover stories and in 1999 won a National Magazine Award. He wrote Newsweek’s 50,000-word election specials in 1996, 2000, 2004 (winner of a National Magazine Award) and 2008.

He has appeared on many TV and radio talk shows, including "Meet the Press" and "The Colbert Report," and has been a guest on PBS’s "Charlie Rose" more than 40 times.

The author of dozens of book reviews for The New York Times and The Washington Post, Thomas has taught writing and journalism at Harvard and Princeton, where, from 2007 to 2014, he was Ferris Professor of Journalism.

Evan Thomas

Books by Evan Thomas

by Evan Thomas - Biography, History, Nonfiction, Politics

She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. But Sandra Day O’Connor’s story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings --- doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement and cowgirl toughness. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, who believed in serving her country, and who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for all women.

by Evan Thomas - Biography, Nonfiction, Politics

What drove a painfully shy outcast in elite Washington society --- a man so self-conscious he refused to make eye contact during meetings --- to pursue power and public office? How did a president so attuned to the American political id that he won reelection in a historic landslide lack the self-awareness to recognize the gaping character flaws that would drive him from office and forever taint his legacy? In BEING NIXON, Evan Thomas peels away the layers of the complex, confounding figure who became America’s 37th president.

written by Evan Thomas, read by Brian Troxell - History, Nonfiction, Politics

Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower set about to make good on his campaign promise to end the Korean War. He would take a colossal risk by bluffing that he might use nuclear weapons against the Communist Chinese, while at the same time restraining his generals and advisors who favored the strikes. Ike's gamble was of such magnitude that there could be but two outcomes: thousands of lives saved, or millions of lives lost.

by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas - Biography, International Relations

These are the leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Robert Lovett,  John McCloy,  and Charles Bohlen.