The Powers That Be

In this fascinating New York Times bestseller, the author of The Best and the Brightest, The Fifties, and other acclaimed histories turns his investigative eye to the rise of the American media in the twentieth century.

Focusing on the successes and failures of CBS Television, Time magazine, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, David Halberstam paints a portrait of the era when large, powerful mainstream media sources emerged as a force, showing how they shifted from simply reporting the news to becoming a part of it. By examining landmark events such as Franklin D. Roosevelt's masterful use of the radio and the unprecedented coverage of the Watergate break-in, Halberstam demonstrates how print and broadcast media as a whole became a player in society and helped shape public policy.

Drawn from hundreds of exhaustive interviews with insiders at each company, and hailed by the Seattle Times as "a monumental X-ray study of power," The Powers That Be reveals the tugs-of-war between political ambition and the quest for truth in a page-turning read.

"[An] important and admirable book . . . The Powers That Be will remain stirring history." — The New York Times Book Review

"Halberstam deploys a stunning novelistic skill in showing how his scores of characters feel about one another. . . . Every page carries a graphic revelation of some piece of subtle delineation, flashes of insight struck off by the adjacencies of power." — The Nation

This ebook features an extended biography of David Halberstam.