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In 1962 The New York Times sent David Halberstam, then 28, to Vietnam. His reporting from Saigon displeased the White House so much that President Kennedy tried to get the paper to replace him with a more compliant journalist; the Times refused, and in 1964 Halberstam shared the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting with Malcolm Browne. Eight years later The Best and the Brightest (1972) traced how the Kennedy and Johnson administrations led the United States into the war. He went on to write about the press, the 1950s, the civil rights movement, basketball and baseball, and died on 23 April 2007 in a car crash in Menlo Park, California, on his way to interview the quarterback Y. A. Tittle. The ten writers below share his ground: long reporting, many witnesses, and a story about power and the people who hold it.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Narrative history · Vietnam and American power · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you liked The Best and the Brightest, start with Neil Sheehan, a fellow correspondent in Saigon, whose A Bright Shining Lie (1988) follows the American officer John Paul Vann through the war. Frances FitzGerald’s Fire in the Lake came out the same year as Halberstam’s book and won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize, and Robert Caro turns the same patience on power at home in The Power Broker (1974). Further down are the historians who came before him, and two writers born in Vietnam who tell the war from the other side.
10 authors like David Halberstam
Where to start if you loved David Halberstam
If you want the war through one life, read Neil Sheehan.
A Bright Shining Lie follows John Paul Vann and took about fourteen years to write.
If you want the Vietnamese side, read Frances FitzGerald and Bảo Ninh.
Fire in the Lake is history; The Sorrow of War is a soldier’s novel.
If you want power at home, read Robert Caro.
The Power Broker rests on 522 interviews.
If you want the soldiers’ war, read Michael Herr.
Dispatches comes from his two years in Vietnam for Esquire.
If you want to go back to Halberstam, read The Best and the Brightest.
Then try The Breaks of the Game (1981) for his sports writing, or The Coldest Winter (2007) on Korea.
Frequently asked questions about authors like David Halberstam
Who writes like David Halberstam?
Neil Sheehan, Frances FitzGerald and Robert Caro are the closest: all three write long, deeply reported books about American power. Sheehan and FitzGerald also wrote about Vietnam.
What should I read after The Best and the Brightest?
Try A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan, which follows one American officer through the war, or Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald, published the same year.
Is David Halberstam like Robert Caro?
Both wrote long, reported books about how power works in the United States. Caro concentrates on two men, Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson; Halberstam moved between politics, the press, the civil rights movement and sport.
Was Halberstam right about Vietnam?
It is still argued. Kennedy tried to have him replaced over his reporting, while the historian Mark Moyar argues that Halberstam relied too heavily on sources such as Phạm Xuân Ẩn, later revealed as a communist agent.
Does David Halberstam have a new book?
No. He died in 2007; The Coldest Winter, his book on the Korean War, was published after his death that year.
Which David Halberstam book should I read first?
The Best and the Brightest (1972), on how the Kennedy and Johnson administrations led the United States into Vietnam. For sport, start with The Breaks of the Game (1981).
Sources
- David Halberstam — Wikipedia
- Neil Sheehan — Wikipedia
- Robert Caro — Wikipedia
- The Sorrow of War — Wikipedia
List last reviewed 31 October 2026.
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