Robert M. Gates served as secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He also served as an officer in the United States Air Force and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency before being appointed director of the agency by President George H. W. Bush. He was a member of the National Security Council staff in four administrations and served eight presidents of both political parties. Additionally, Gates has a continuing distinguished record in the private sector and in academia, including currently serving as chancellor of the College of William and Mary. He holds a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University.
A 2014 New York Times Notable Book
“Probably one of the best Washington memoirs ever...Historians and
policy wonks will bask in the revelations Gates provides on major
decisions from late 2006 to 2011, the span of his time at the
Pentagon…Gates is doing far more than just scoring points in this
revealing volume. The key to reading it is understanding that he
was profoundly affected by his role in sending American soldiers
overseas to fight and be killed or maimed.”
—Thomas E. Ricks, The New York Times Book Review
“Touching, heartfelt...fascinating...Gates takes the reader inside
the war-room deliberations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack
Obama and delivers unsentimental assessments of each man’s
temperament, intellect and management style...No civilian in
Washington was closer to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than
Gates. As Washington and the rest of the country were growing bored
with the grinding conflicts, he seemed to feel their burden more
acutely.”
—Greg Jaffe, The Washington Post
“Forthright, impassioned…highly revealing about decision making in
both the Obama and Bush White Houses…[Gates’] writing is informed
not only by a keen sense of historical context, but also by a
longtime Washington veteran’s understanding of how the levers of
government work or fail to work. Unlike many careful Washington
memoirists, Gates speaks his mind on a host of issues…[he] gives us
his shrewd take on a range of foreign policy matters, an
understanding of his mission to reform the incoherent spending and
procurement policies of the Pentagon, and a tactile sense of what
it was like to be defense secretary during two wars.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“A refreshingly honest memoir and a moving one.”
—Jack Keane, The Wall Street Journal
“A compelling memoir and a serious history…A fascinating, briskly
honest account [of a] journey through the cutthroat corridors
of Washington and world politics, with shrewd, sometimes
eye-popping observations along the way about the nature of war and
the limits of power.…Gates was a truly historic secretary of
defense…precisely because he did get so much done…His
descriptions of how he accomplished these feats—the mix of
cooptation and coercion that he employed—should be read by every
future defense secretary, and executives of all stripes, as a guide
for how to command and overhaul a large institution.”
—Fred Kaplan, Slate
“A breathtakingly comprehensive and ultimately unsparing
examination of the modern ways of making politics, policy, and
war…Students of the nation’s two early twenty-first century wars
will find the comprehensive account of Pentagon and White House
deliberations riveting. General readers will be drawn to [Gates’]
meditations on power and on life at the center of great political
decisions…His vision is clear and his tale is sad. Gates takes
‘Duty’ as his title, but the account of his service also brings to
mind the other two thirds of the West Point motto: ‘honor’ and
‘country.’”
—David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe
“Duty…is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of what
makes Washington tick.”
—Edward Luce, Financial Times
“Gates has offered…an informed and…earnest perspective, one that
Americans ought to hear, reflect on and debate.”
—Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
“Engaging and candid….Young people who want to understand and live
up to the highest ideals of American statesmanship would do well to
read this book carefully; Gates has much to teach about the
practical idealism that represents the best kind of American
leadership.”
—Foreign Affairs
“Compelling…trenchant.”
—Newsday
“This is a serious, thoughtful, illuminating, and valuable insider
account of the final years of the George W. Bush administration and
early years of the Obama presidency….Gates holds little back in
this revealing memoir.”
—Choice
“If you read only one book by a Washington insider this year, make
it this one. It should be savored by anyone who wishes to know more
about the realities of decision-making in today’s federal
government.”
—Library Journal
“The full story that emerges from this detailed and often deeply
personal account is of a man fed up with the dysfunction of the
nation’s capital.”
—The American Conservative
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