Robert Gates, former head of the CIA, reveals fascinating insights into how the US Central Intelligence Agency has evolved by recurring trials and errors.

This book moves beyond the focus on economic considerations that was central to the work of New Left historians, examining the many other forces -- domestic politics, bureaucratic inertia, quirks of personality, and perceptions of Soviet intentions -- that influenced key decision makers in Washington.

Explores the complexities of the Soviet-American relationship between the November Revolution of 1917 and Russia's final departure in March 1918 from the ranks of the warring powers.

After World War II, Germany lay in ruins. To Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) belongs much of the credit for raising West Germany to economic prosperity and making it a free-world ally. This biography explores the life of the German statesman in a book which is also a history of modern Germany.