This is a masterpiece. Philip Taubman, one of the great reporters and editors from The New York Times, has dug forever and found the real, authentic George Shultz, one of the true peacemakers of the 20th century. Essentially positive but not avoiding some well-documented criticisms, this biography reminds me of David McCullough's classic biographies of Presidents John Adams and Harry Truman-defining and sure-footed in every paragraph.-Bob Woodward, #1 bestselling author of Peril and Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate
The nuanced diplomacy of George Shultz at the end of the Cold War was a major reason that 45-year conflict ended with a whimper rather than the nuclear bang we had all feared. In his biography about Shultz, Philip Taubman masterfully explains the many keys to Shultz's success, including his giant intellect and understated ability to build personal relationships with his interlocutors in the Soviet Union. In the Nation's Service is a must read for those interested in the life and times of one of our nation's foremost secretaries of state.-James A. Baker, III, 61st U.S. Secretary of State
Philip Taubman has written an outstanding book about the extraordinary life and public service of Secretary Shultz. As Taubman describes in these pages, Shultz possessed the rare ability to build consensus among people with diverse and sometimes deeply opposing views, exhibiting an agile diplomacy that allowed him to aid in the peaceful end of the Cold War. Taubman's account deftly captures the character of this American icon, the halls of power in which he served the nation, and the consequential one hundred years in which he lived.-Condoleezza Rice, 66th US Secretary of State, Tad and Dianne Taube Director, Hoover Institution
Taubman makes a persuasive case that Shultz was one of the most distinguished American officials of the last half century.-H.W. Brands, author of The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America and Reagan: The Life
Philip Taubman's new biography of Shultz, In the Nation's Service, offers a more complicated assessment of the well-known government official and of the modern history of the GOP. Shultz's saga of triumph and turmoil offers a reminder that the brutal moral conditions Republican administrations impose on those who work in them were not just confined to Trump, but have been manifest all along.-Washington Monthly
Philip Taubman's In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz adds a surprising new dimension to the Reagan saga. Through the eyes of Shultz, the secretary of state, Taubman portrays the Reagan administration as swamped and nearly paralyzed by disorganization and infighting. Cabinet members and White House aides were constantly at each other's throats. This will come as no surprise to students of the Reagan presidency, but Taubman, a longtime reporter and editor at the New York Times, introduces a new and highly credible source. [Taubman's research] provides valuable new insight into the Reagan years, and he gives Shultz credit for holding things together.-David E. Hoffman, The Washington Post
Taubman's book is remarkable in many ways. [I]t gives Shultz the credit he deserves in guiding Reagan's foreign policy, especially in ending the Soviet empire, that had been reserved for just Reagan, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, President George H.W. Bush, and his top diplomat James Baker.-Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner
The humanity and human touch of Shultz and his biographer emerge on nearly every page.-Walter Clemens, New York Journal of Books
Taubman has written an outstanding biography of George Shultz, both comprehensive and consistently engaging. Taubman's biography excels at conveying Shultz's human characteristics-trustworthiness, solidity, fortitude, plain-spoken directness, quick intelligence, ambition-which brought him to the summit of the American political system and made him such an invaluable player in it.-Gabriel Schoenfeld, The American Purpose
