The names are almost all known nationally: Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, David Dinkins, Al Sharpton, Larry Kramer, and Donald Trump. These are people who were first in the news in the 1980s. Their early public lives are now featured in Jonathan Mahler's book, "The Gods of New York." The book is divided into four large chapters titled 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989. Mr. Mahler, a feature writer for the New York Times Magazine, closes his book with this last paragraph: "The existential questions that New York faced as it entered 1986 were answered. The great working-class city was gone."

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Philip Taubman and his brother William have written what the publisher Norton is calling "McNamara at War: A New History." It's a full life biography of former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. "It's a portrait of a man at war with himself," according to the authors. "It's riven with melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late." William Taubman, seven years older than his brother at 83, is an emeritus political science professor from Amherst College. Brother Phil spent 30 years with the New York Times and is an author of several books.

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Daniel Flynn's book is titled, "The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer." Mr. Flynn points out in his introduction that "Meyer travels from communist to conservative, peace activist to soldier, Jew to Catholic, rhapsodist of Satan to cheerleader for Reagan, and free love enthusiast to family man." Flynn, who is a senior editor at the American Spectator and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, tells readers how he found the forgotten papers of Frank Meyer. It's in a warehouse in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Meyer lived between 1909 and 1972. He was 62 when he died.

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In our last podcast, Ed Luce of the Financial Times told us about his book, "Zbig," for Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017) who he calls America's great power prophet. In this episode, we're going to feature a Booknotes interview from April 2, 1989, with Dr. Brzezinski. He was the first guest for the weekly Sunday evening program that ran until 2005. His book at the time was about his longtime prediction that there would be a failure of communism in the Soviet Union. The name of Brzezinski's book was "The Grand Failure."

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"I was initially very skeptical about embarking on a full life biography of anyone, let alone a figure as big as Zbig."Edward Luce is talking about President Carter's former national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Mr. Luce is the Financial Times' chief commentator and columnist. Luce is a native of Sussex, England, and has spent close to 20 years in the United States since the mid-90s. He is an Oxford grad. Zbigniew Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland, got his PhD at Harvard, and spent time in Canada during the time his father was posted as police council general in Montreal. Brzezinski was national security advisor from 1977 to 1981.

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Simon Ball is the author of the book "Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination." Professor Ball is British and is located at the University of Leeds. His publisher, Yale University Press, says: "Assassination, the murder of a specific individual by an organized conspiracy in pursuit of political ends has shaped the fate not only of the famous and infamous victims, but also of nations and empires." Simon Ball tells the story of hundreds of assassins from 1914 to the present. He claims the most important assassination during those years was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which was the start of World War I.

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Author Sam Tanenhaus opens the acknowledgement section in his latest book, "Buckley," this way: "I first met William F. Buckley in 1990, shortly after I had begun work on a biography of Whitaker Chambers…Bill Buckley had been Chambers' last patron and most eloquent champion." The biography of Chambers was published in 1997. Now 28 years later, Sam Tanenhaus finished his 1,018-page book on the life of William Buckley Jr. "Within months of our first conversation, Bill Buckley had opened doors," writes Tanenhaus, "uncovered grant money, made phone calls, and performed innumerable other kindnesses, large and small."

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Historian Jay Winik first appeared on the Booknotes television program 24 years ago to discuss his book, "April 1865." It became a #1 New York Times bestseller, reportedly read by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and many others. It's the narrative story of the Civil War. For his latest book, Winik stepped back four years in history to look at how the Civil War began. This time the book is titled "1861: The Lost Peace." "Northerners had little regard for the strength or determination of the South," writes Winik. Lincoln friend John Hay said the Southern Army was nothing more than a vast mob. The New York Tribune said it differently: "Jeff Davis and company will be swinging from the battlements at Washington by the 4th of July."

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Sir Richard J. Evans has been writing about Germany and Adolf Hitler for his entire professional life. He was knighted in Britain in 2012 for his service to scholarship. From 2003-2008, Professor Evans published a trilogy of the Third Reich with a total of over 2,500 pages. His latest book is titled "Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich." In his preface, Sir Richard, a former professor at Cambridge University writes: "The individuals who stand at the center of this book range from the top to the bottom, from Hitler all the way down to the lowest of the Nazi party." There are 22 chapters.

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In our earlier discussion with Zaakir Tameez about his biography of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, he discussed his differences with Professor David Herbert Donald on the same subject. On December the 24th, 1995, Professor Donald talked about his book called "Lincoln" on the Booknotes television program. David Donald died in 2009 at age 88. During his teaching career, which he finished as a professor of history at Harvard, Professor Donald was praised for his "Lincoln" book by historian Eric Foner. "It is often considered the best single volume of Lincoln ever. It's the most balanced of the biographies out there," said Foner.

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