Countdown 1960

Praise

Praise for Countdown 1960:

“Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days that Changed America’s Politics Forever is a look at a critical period in U.S. history that holds lessons for today.” —AP

“The latest installment in Chris [Wallace’s] incredible COUNTDOWN books. This is a race that seems to have shaped everybody that I looked up to in media. This was a defining moment.”—MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough

“Chris Wallace unwraps the secrets of the larger-than-life personalities of 1960. With stunning revelations of private and behind-the-scenes alliances, strategies, and romances, we are treated to the histories of an inflection year in American politics in a compelling, page-turning narrative.” —Senator Mitt Romney

Praise for Countdown bin Laden:

“Chris Wallace has done an exceptional job retelling this important event in modern American history with a great deal of research, and a flair for blow-by-blow storytelling that could easy parallel with the best selling thriller novels of Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin. Overall, Countdown bin Laden reads like historical suspense.” —Montreal Times 

Praise for Countdown 1945:

“[A] superb, masterly book . . . Countdown 1945 is filled with fascinating details. . . . On one hand, the book reads like a riveting novel as Wallace reveals the machinations and internal debates among the scientific community to devise a workable atomic bomb as quickly as possible. . . . But Countdown 1945 is also a profound story of decision making at the highest levels—and of pathos.” —Jay Winik, New York Times Book Review

“A compelling and highly readable account of one of the most fateful decisions in American history. Like John Hersey in his book Hiroshima, Wallace and Weiss humanize events too often reduced to technical or diplomatic arcana by telling their story through the lives of individuals. . . . The book moves along at a rapid clip, with colorful anecdotes enlivening the narrative.” —Gregg Herken, The Washington Post

“Vivid and engaging . . . Wallace has made a taut nonfiction thriller out of the dramatic days between Harry S. Truman’s succession to the presidency, following Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, and the dropping of the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than four months later. . . . This is a deeply absorbing reading experience about the fateful final months of a conflict that deserves to be known in detail to all Americans. It is what a popular history book should be: propulsively paced; well researched in primary sources; and written with sympathetic imagination, bringing people to life in their important moments. . . . The book is deservedly the nonfiction blockbuster of the season.” —James D. Hornfischer, The Wall Street Journal