{"product_id":"road-to-disaster-lp","title":"Road to Disaster LP","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"The most thoughtful and judicious one-volume history of the war and the American political leaders who presided over the difficult and painful decisions that shaped this history. The book will stand for the foreseeable future as the best study of the tragic mistakes that led to so much suffering.\"--Robert Dallek\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the young stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite millions of words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent, brilliant, and previously successful men stumbled so badly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat changes with \u003cem\u003eRoad to Disaster\u003c\/em\u003e. Historian Brian VanDeMark draws upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who served as Defense Secretaries for Kennedy and Johnson. Yet beyond that, \u003cem\u003eRoad to Disaster\u003c\/em\u003e is also the first history of the war to look at the cataclysmic decisions of those in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations through the prism of recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and organizational theory to explain why the \"Best and the Brightest\" became trapped in situations that suffocated creative thinking and willingness to dissent, why they found change so hard, and why they were so blind to their own errors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn epic history of America's march to quagmire, \u003cem\u003eRoad to Disaster\u003c\/em\u003e is a landmark in scholarship and a book of immense importance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eVandemark, Brian:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Brian VanDeMark teaches history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, where for more than twenty-five years he has educated students about the Vietnam War. A Ph.D. graduate of UCLA and an elected visiting fellow at Oxford University, he served as research assistant on Clark Clifford's bestselling autobiography, \u003cem\u003eCounsel to the President, \u003c\/em\u003e and coauthor of Robert McNamara's number one bestseller, \u003cem\u003eIn Retrospect\u003c\/em\u003e. A Texas native, he now lives in Maryland.","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50318014578962,"sku":"9780062859662","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_399befcb-00f6-4dd3-a6f3-64e71d754b89.jpg?v=1727545434","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/road-to-disaster-lp","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}