Name-dropping

Drawing on a lifetime of access to many of the greatest public figures, Galbraith creates a rich and uniquely personal history of the century - a history he helped to shape. We are invited to hear FDR on the Great Depression and World War II, Albert Speer, the Third Reich's architect and armaments minister, on the boorishness and incompetence of the Nazi leadership; John F. Kennedy, from youth to the presidency; Jacqueline Kennedy's shrewd judgments of the White House inner circle. In this clear-eyed, unsparing, and amusing look back at the world and the people he has known, Galbraith tells…