American History for McNamara at War: A New History by Philip and William Taubman to be Awarded The New York Historical’s 2026 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize

Prize Includes $50,000 and Title of American Historian Laureate

Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang, chair of The New York Historical’s Board of Trustees, and Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of The New York Historical, announced that Philip and William Taubman will be honored with The New York Historical’s annual Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History for McNamara at War: A New History (W.W. Norton & Co, 2025). The award recognizes the best book of the year in the field of American history or biography. Philip and William Taubman will receive a $50,000 cash award, an engraved medal, and the title of American Historian Laureate. This honor will be presented at The New York Historical’s annual Chair’s Council Weekend with History on April 10. 

“Philip and William Taubman’s McNamara at War is a modern American epic chronicling Robert McNamara’s life in the mode of the classical Greek tragic cycle—arete (excellence), hubris (arrogance), ate (reckless folly), and nemesis (punishment of the prideful)—in the context of another tumultuous and divisive time in our nation’s history, “said Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang, board chair of The New York Historical. “This incisive work commands us all to reflect on the lessons of historical consequences when power is unchecked by moral leadership, and the importance of historical veracity. The New York Historical has been a steadfast steward of evidence of American history for 222 years, and it is our honor to bestow the Barbara and David Zalaznick Prize to McNamara at War in the year of our nation’s semiquincentennial.” 

“McNamara at War offers fascinating insights into the life of a complicated man whose actions altered the trajectory of millions of people’s lives, both here in the US and around the globe,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of The New York Historical. “Philip and William Taubman have done tremendous work in creating a nuanced and complex portrait of Robert McNamara, and we are honored to present them with this year’s Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History.”

“I am honored and delighted to receive the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History, and its recognition of Bill’s and my exploration of the life of Robert McNamara and his fateful role in managing the Vietnam War,” said Philip Taubman.

“As a long-time student of Soviet history and government, I am particularly pleased to be recognized as an historian of my own country,” said William Taubman.

Robert S. McNamara was widely considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his generation. While he could be cold and arrogant, he was an invaluable friend to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as US secretary of defense and had a deeply moving relationship with Jackie Kennedy. McNamara was the leading advocate for American escalation in the summer of 1965, strongly urging Johnson to send hundreds of thousands of American ground troops to Vietnam, just weeks before McNamara concluded that the war was unwinnable. For the next two and a half years before stepping down, despite his doubts, he failed to urge Johnson to cut his losses and withdraw.

In McNamara at War, Philip and William Taubman examine McNamara’s life of intense personal contradictions. They trace his career from a young faculty member at Harvard Business School and his World War II service to his leadership of the Ford Motor Company and the World Bank. McNamara at War is a portrait of a man at war with himself—riven by melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and a profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late.

Philip Taubman, a former New York Times Washington Bureau Chief, is affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is the author of In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz.

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. His book, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of Gorbachev: His Life and Times. 

McNamara at War: A New History was selected from a field of more than 200 submissions by a prize committee comprising historians and The Historical’s leadership. Previous winners of the Book Prize in American History include Randall K. Wilson for A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park; Jonathan Eig for King: A Life; Beverly Gage for G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century; Alan Taylor for American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850; Tracy Campbell for The Year of Peril: America in 1942; Rick Atkinson for The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777; Benn Steil for The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War; John A. Farrell for Richard Nixon: The Life; Jane Kamensky for Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley; Eric Foner for Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad; Jill Lepore for The Secret History of Wonder Woman; Doris Kearns Goodwin for Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln; David Nasaw for Andrew Carnegie; Daniel Walker Howe for What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848; Drew Gilpin Faust for This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War; Gordon S. Wood for Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815; Ron Chernow for George Washington: A Life; John Lewis Gaddis for George F. Kennan: An American Life; Robert Caro for Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power; and Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy for The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire.

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