What Did They Read?

The Best and the Brightest

David Halberstam

Mentions2 mentions
First heard25 September 2026
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Episodes about this book

2 episodes

Liaquat Ahamed on Financial Crises, Gold, and the Lessons of 1873

Conversations with Tyler, 14 October 2026. The book comes up at 37 min 30 sec in.

Tyler Cowen asks Liaquat Ahamed why he finds David Halberstam's book so notable. Ahamed says it was probably the first book he read after arriving in the United States in 1974 and describes it as remarkable for how much it taught him about how the American political system works.

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What Does Abdul El-Sayed Believe?

The Ezra Klein Show, 25 September 2026. The book comes up at 1 hr 33 min in.

Abdul El-Sayed recommends David Halberstam's book about the Vietnam War, calling it an 'incredible observation' on elitism, institutional groupthink, and the failure of over-credentialed decision-makers who lacked common sense and any moral reckoning with what they were actually doing.

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All summaries are AI generated based on the original transcript.