Personal accounts fill in the blanks of contemporary history, blanks left by sterile timelines and the speculations of carping outsiders. Donald Rumsfeld's 'Known and Unknown' is thus one of the most important contributions to a growing list of remembrances of our most recent wars.
The book is crisply written, blending narrative detail with personal judgment and reflection. Mr. Rumsfeld begins by giving us a fine, if compressed, account of his life before becoming George W. Bush's defense secretary in 2001. We are taken through Mr. Rumsfeld's time as a congressman in the 1960s and his years in the Ford administration, when he served as both chief of staff and defense secretary. But the bulk of 'Known and Unknown' inevitably refers to the events that followed 9/11—that is, to the Bush administration's wars in Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq."
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
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