Steve Coll's book recommendations

Steve Coll is a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and reporter and the dean of Columbia University's journalism school. At The Week magazine he recommended six books, including:

Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945 by Barbara W. Tuchman (1971).

Like [Neil] Sheehan's masterpiece [A Bright Shining Lie], this book uses the experiences of one man to narrate a larger story, as U.S. Army Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell becomes our window on China's early-20th-century traumas and America's role in them. Tuchman remains influential because of her mastery of complex narrative; I envy and still study her methods.

Learn about the other books on Coll's list.

--Marshal Zeringue