David Halberstam Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

David Halberstam was an American author, journalist, and historian. He is recognized for his work covering topics on everything from politics to business, media, sports journalism, American culture, the Vietnam War, history, and media. He would pass away in 2007.

David was born on April 10, 1934, in New York City to Blanche and Charles Halberstam. His mother was a teacher and his father was a surgeon in the Army. He grew up in Winsted, Connecticut as part of a Jewish family. They would later move to Yonkers in New York and in 1951, David graduated high school. He would get accepted to Harvard, was managing editor of The Harvard Crimson, and graduated with his degree in 1955.

David continued professionally in journalism, working in Mississippi at the Daily Times Leader. He would work in Nashville for The Tennessean, covering the civil rights movement and singularly covering the sit-ins in Nashville, according to John Lewis. He would also report on the Congo Crisis in the Republic of the Congo in August of 1961, although the complexity in the lies from the officials and working conditions proved to be taxing. He went along with the chance to relocate to Vietnam in July of 1962 to write for The New York Times about the war. There he would have conflict with the officials stationed there due to his raging responses to lies. One such instance was being instructed to report an event as a victory while the media was blacked out.

David would go on to challenge the false upbeat nature of Vietnam reporting. He would work with other colleagues to report troop defeats at Battle of Ap Bac and The Times was even approached by John F. Kennedy, President of the U.S. at the time, to replace him with another journalist that would be more open to going along with the status quo. The Times, to their credit, declined to do this. He debunked a claim made during the 1963 Buddhist crisis that Army of the Republic of Vietnam had made the raids on the temples of the Buddhists. Americans had initially thought this was true, but David showed that Special Forces had done the raids for the purpose of setting up the Army generals. He would also become involved in a fight with secret police after an attack on another journalist while they were covering a Buddhist protest. Since others were supportive of the Diem regime, it led to a feud starting among David and other journalists.

The author received an award for his work in foreign reporting in 1963, the George Polk Award for his work in the New York Times which included an account of witnessing a Vietnamese Buddhist monk’s self-immolation. He would leave Vietnam at thirty in 1964, the same year that he received the Pulitzer Prize for his work in international reporting. He also was featured in a documentary film about the Vietnam War, the 1968 film In the Year of the Pig, where he is interviewed.

He would work for the New York Times again covering the civil rights movement. He would also go to Poland and where the people of Warsaw, particularly the artistic types, saw him as a unique attraction. He got married to a young actress named Elzbieta in June of 1965. The marriage would last for two years. However, the writer would be kicked out of the country after having a good reception from the Communist regime there due to an article that the Times printed that was critical of the government. His wife would come with him and also become an outcast.

The author would go to Cleveland and then California with Martin Luther King Jr. in the springtime in 1967 for an article. While he was working at the New York Times, David would be getting material together to put towards his future book, The Making of a Quagmire. He would go on to write about choices made in foreign policy by John F. Kennedy as President about the Vietnam War in his book The Best and the Brightest.

He would write books about the U.S.’s chances of falling economically to other chances after the Cold War in his novel The Next Century and would write about sports in books like The Breaks of the Game or a Michael Jordan book called Playing for Keeps. He would also write about the Red Sox in The Teammates and about Bill Belichick, head coach of the Patriots, in The Education of a Coach. He would receive the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award in 1997, and a Doctor of Laws honorary degree from Colby College.

The 1996 movie “Rowing Through’ was based on his novel The Amateurs and starred Colin Ferguson and Leslie Hope. His book The Fifties is the basis for the television mini-series documentary The Fifties, which came out in 1997. The 2003 television movie documentary The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship was also based on his book.

David Halberstam is the author of The Making of a Quagmire, along with editor and contributor Daniel J. Singal. This book dives into Vietnam and America and the two countries during the era of John F. Kennedy.

This is an eyewitness tale about America as it came to the height of its Vietnam involvement and entered a critical political period in time. This story remains just as relevant as ever and is well told by Halberstam, while Singal is able to give the reader information that they need that was not first available to them at the original time that the book was composed and published back in 1965.

One Very Hot Day first came out in 1967 and still remains a relevant reading piece today! This book tells about a group of American soldiers and how they contend with the heat as well as their own fear while they wait for the enemy to come and attack them.

Full of realistic detail, this is a fictional portrait that captures very well what Vietnam was like at the time of its conflict with the United States. Get a copy of this book for yourself and see what you think!