About this item
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage's penetrating investigation of the Obama presidency and the national security stateBarack Obama campaigned on a promise of change from George W. Bush's "global war on terror." Yet from indefinite detention and drone strikes to surveillance and military tribunals, Obama ended up continuing-and in some cases expanding-many policies he inherited. What happened In Power Wars, Charlie Savage looks inside the Obama administration's national security legal and policy team in a way that no one has before. Based on exclusive interviews with more than 150 current and former officials and access to previously unreported documents, he lays bare their internal deliberations, including emotional debates over the fates of detainees held on torture-tainted evidence and acts of war that lacked congressional authorization. He tells the inside stories of how Obama came to order the killing of an American citizen, preside over an unprecedented crackdown on leaks, and keep a then-secret National Security Agency program that collected records of every American's phone calls.Savage also pieces together the first comprehensive history of how American surveillance secretly developed over the past thirty-five years, synthesizing recent revelations and filling in gaps with new reporting. And he provides lucid explanations of legal dilemmas in a way that non-lawyers can understand. Highlighted by new information about the pivotal aftermath to the failed Christmas underwear bombing and the planning for the Osama bin Laden raid, Savage's own eyewitness reporting at Guantnamo, and detailed accounts of closed-door meetings at the highest levels of government, Power Wars equips readers to understand the legacy of Obama's presidency.
About the Author
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage is a Washington correspondent for the New York Times. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, Savage graduated from Harvard College and earned a master's degree from Yale Law School as part of a Knight Foundation journalism fellowship. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Luiza Ch. Savage, the editorial director of events for Politico, and their children, William and Peter Savage.
Savage has been covering post-9/11 issues since 2003, when he was a reporter for the Miami Herald. While working for the Boston Globe, Savage received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award, and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. He has twice co-taught a seminar on national security and the Constitution at Georgetown University's political science department, and has been writing for the New York Times since 2008.
Visit his book website and blog at http://www.charliesavage.com
