Read This: Tour of Duty

tourduty.GIFDouglas Brinkley’s Tour of Duty (recently excerpted in The Atlantic Monthly) offers tremendous insight into the character of John Kerry, frankly more than you’ll find in his official campaign book, A Call to Service. (And I reviewed them both for PW, so I should know!) (Though in all fairness, Kerry’s book isn’t at all bad for the genre, and he came off more candidly than Howard Dean did in his book.)

There don’t seem to be any reviews of the book online yet, or interviews with Brinkley, though they’re sure to come in the next week or so. In the meantime, here’s a link to the Eisenhower Center for American Studies, which Brinkley directs. If an interview shows up, I’ll revise the post or add a comment or something, but I wanted to give folks a heads up on the book, which has a one-day laydown next week…

1 January 2004 | read this |