"This deftly woven portrait of Brewster and his close friends . . . is among the most revealing books ever written about the liberal establishment . . . Kabaservice is [a] thorough researcher and [a] comprehensive storyteller." —The Atlantic Monthly
Yale's Kingman Brewster was the only university president to appear on the covers of Time and Newsweek and the last campus leader to become a truly national figure. He was also the center of the liberal establishment—a circle of influential men, all born to privilege, who set out to reform the society and institutions that had given them their advantages. Geoffrey Kabaservice shows how Brewster and his lifelong friends-Kennedy adviser McGeorge Bundy, New York mayor John Lindsay, Attorney General Elliot Richardson, Bishop Paul Moore, and Cyrus Vance, pillar of Washington and Wall Street—helped usher the United States through the turbulence of the 1960s, and how they influenced each other, the country, and ultimately our world.
Kabaservice reclaims the importance of Brewster and his peers, illuminating their vital place in American history as the bridge between the old establishment and the liberal tradition.
