Ezra's Bookshelf

The Man Who Ran Washington

by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser · 737 pages · ~13.5 hrs

Biography & MemoirPolitics & GovernmentHistory

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Peter Baker and Susan Glasser chronicle the remarkable career of James A. Baker III, who served in senior positions under three presidents and shaped American foreign policy during the Cold War's end. Baker was Reagan's Chief of Staff, then Treasury Secretary, before becoming George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State and later his campaign manager. The authors, veteran Washington journalists, conducted extensive interviews with Baker and those who worked with him to understand how he achieved so much in a city that destroys most careers. Baker mastered the mechanics of power: managing the White House, building coalitions, negotiating with adversaries, and above all maintaining relationships that could be cashed in when needed. The book covers his central role in German reunification, building the coalition for the Gulf War, and convening the Madrid Peace Conference. It also examines his failures, including the 2000 Florida recount that put his work at the service of partisan ends. Baker represents a vanishing species: the pragmatic establishment Republican more interested in getting things done than in ideological purity. This biography captures both his accomplishments and the political world he navigated that no longer exists.

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