NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist comes “the best Jordan book so far” ( The Washington Post ), the story of Michael Jordan’s legendary years with the Chicago Bulls, capped by the 1998 NBA Finals and the team’s second three-peat. From The Breaks of the Game to Summer of ’49, David Halberstam has brought the perspective of a great historian, the insider knowledge of a dogged sportswriter, and the love of a fan to bear on some of the most mythic players and teams in the annals of American sports. With Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls he has given himself the greatest challenge and produced his greatest triumph. In Playing for Keeps, Halberstam takes the first full measure of Michael Jordan’s epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the book chronicles the forces in Jordan’s life that have shaped him in to history’s greatest basketball player and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world.

Pulitzer-winning historian Halberstam first decided to write this book more than thirty years ago and it took him nearly ten years. It stands as a lasting testament to its author, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles. Halberstam gives us a full narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides, charting the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides vivid portraits of all the major figures--Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. He also provides us with his trademark narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. At the heart of the book are the stories of the soldiers on the front lines who were left to deal with the consequences of the dangerous misjudgments and competing agendas of powerful men.--From publisher description.

The Pulitzer prize-winning newsman's analysis of Kennedy's ideological journey toward "increasing radicalism" and a personal account of his subsequent successes (and single major defeat) along the campaign trail. Halberstam shows how Kennedy in his role as "leader of the honorable opposition in the Democratic party" became the caustic critic of the administration's ghetto policies as well as a more cautious critic of its Vietnam policy, placing himself at "the exact median point of American idealism and American power." It is a fascinating story of realpolitik (the Kennedy staff wanted Mayor Daley's backing in Chicago) played for radical aims, but Halberstam demonstrates his thesis that Kennedy was the rare politician who surpassed his image. The Kennedy backers were a coalition of old eggheads, youngish radicals (Allard Lowenstein was a major booster and a radicalizer of the candidate), veterans like Larry O'Brien, and--possibly--because he was the first, candidate to visit them and make demands for them--the ghetto residents. Kennedy was a crucial bridge to the New Politics which was, like the country, "in transition politically." Halberstam mourns him.

One of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century, Ho Chi Minh was founder of the Indochina Communist Party and its successor, the Viet-Minh, and was president from 1945 to 1969 of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). In exploring the life and career of Ho Chi Minh, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam provides a window into traditions and culture that influenced the American war in Vietnam, while highlighting the importance of nationalism in determining the war's outcome. As depicted by Halberstam, Ho is first and foremost a nationalist and a patriot. He was also, according to the author, a pragmatist "who was able to turn the abstract into the practical and to embody the concept of revolution to his own people." This edition includes a new preface by the author.