In "Days of Fire," Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for "The
New York Times," takes us on a gripping and intimate journey through the
eight years of the Bush and Cheney administration in a tour-de-force
narrative of a dramatic and controversial presidency.
Theirs was the most captivating American political partnership since
Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger: a bold and untested president and his
seasoned, relentless vice president. Confronted by one crisis after
another, they struggled to protect the country, remake the world, and
define their own relationship along the way. In "Days of Fire," Peter
Baker chronicles the history of the most consequential presidency in
modern times through the prism of its two most compelling characters,
capturing the elusive and shifting alliance of George Walker Bush and
Richard Bruce Cheney as no historian has done before. He brings to life
with in-the-room immediacy all the drama of an era marked by devastating
terror attacks, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and financial
collapse.
The real story of Bush and Cheney is a far more fascinating tale than
the familiar suspicion that Cheney was the power behind the throne.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews with key players, and thousands of
pages of never-released notes, memos, and other internal documents,
Baker paints a riveting portrait of a partnership that evolved
dramatically over time, from the early days when Bush leaned on Cheney,
making him the most influential vice president in history, to their
final hours, when the two had grown so far apart they were clashing in
the West Wing. Together and separately, they were tested as no other
president and vice president have been, first on a bright September
morning, an unforgettable "day of fire" just months into the presidency,
and on countless days of fire over the course of eight tumultuous
years.
"Days of Fire" is a monumental and definitive work that will rank with
the best of presidential histories. As absorbing as a thriller, it is
eye-opening and essential reading.
