The Chairman

An American history buff, I’ve long been fascinated by the career of John McCloy, a kind of Zelig of the World War II and post-war era. Kai Bird is the co-author of the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, on which the recent movie is based.

Bird lays out the long and influential arc of McCloy’s career. Assistant Secretary of War in World War II, where he was involved in the decision to send Japanese-Americans in California to internment camps and counseled Harry Truman against using the atomic bomb. President of the World Bank.

US High Commissioner for Germany, where he… show more.

Younger Americans have no direct experience of the Cold War, McCarthyism, or the nineteen sixties. They rarely hear anyone suggest that the government is properly responsible for maintaining full employment. They also have little idea of what the American establishment was when Pax Americana shaped the world. This study conveys that world very well indeed. It benefits once again from a vast amount of primary research. Its depiction of how banks, lawyers, and American multinationals wielded power at the zenith of the “American Century” has few, if any rivals. It vividly shows how someone very few Americans ever heard of… show more.