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On 17 June 1972, five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate building in Washington. Bob Woodward, a 29-year-old reporter at The Washington Post, was sent to cover the court hearing. With Carl Bernstein he spent the next two years following the money and the cover-up, work that earned the Post the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and ended with Richard Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. Woodward has since written about every president from Nixon to Joe Biden, as well as the CIA, the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve, and his official site counts 15 No. 1 national bestsellers. This guide covers his 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1974–2024 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Bob Woodward’s best-known books are All the President’s Men (1974, with Carl Bernstein), The Final Days (1976), The Brethren (1979), Veil (1987), Plan of Attack (2004) and Fear (2018). Start with All the President’s Men, the Watergate story that made his name; the later books each take one administration and reconstruct its big decisions from the inside.
Where to Start with Bob Woodward
If you want the book that made his name
→ All the President’s Men (1974) — Watergate, as he and Bernstein reported it.
If you want an institution few reporters had opened up
→ The Brethren (1979) — the Supreme Court under Warren Burger.
If you want the road to the Iraq war
→ Plan of Attack (2004) — how the 2003 invasion was decided.
If you want the Trump years
→ Fear (2018) — the first of his books on the Trump White House.
14 Bob Woodward Books, in Order
All the President’s Men
Woodward and Carl Bernstein tell how they reported the Watergate story for The Washington Post, from the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee to the money trail that led back to Richard Nixon’s re-election committee. It introduced the anonymous source known as “Deep Throat”. Published in 1974, the year Nixon resigned, it became the 1976 film with Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein.
The Final Days
The sequel to All the President’s Men, written in the third person from hundreds of interviews: the last months of the Nixon presidency, from the fight over the White House tapes to his resignation in August 1974. It established the method of almost all his later books, reconstructing private scenes from the accounts of people who were there.
The Brethren
Written with Scott Armstrong, an inside account of the US Supreme Court in its first years under Chief Justice Warren Burger, from 1969, including its deliberations on abortion, desegregation and the Nixon tapes. It drew on interviews with clerks and several justices, and was one of the first books to describe how the court decides cases behind closed doors.
Wired
A biography of the comedian John Belushi, of Saturday Night Live and The Blues Brothers, who died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles in 1982 at the age of 33. Woodward, who like Belushi grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, reconstructs his last years largely through his drug use. Friends and critics said it left out the rest of his life; it was filmed as Wired (1989).
Veil
The CIA under William Casey, Ronald Reagan’s director of central intelligence, and its covert operations in Central America, the Middle East and elsewhere, up to the Iran-Contra affair. Woodward had dozens of meetings and calls with Casey. The book ends with a brief hospital-room exchange with Casey shortly before his death in 1987, which Casey’s widow and others disputed.
The Commanders
The Pentagon and White House under George H. W. Bush, through the invasion of Panama in December 1989 and the build-up to the Gulf War after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The central figures are the defence secretary Dick Cheney and General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Maestro
A portrait of Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987, through the stock market crash of that year, the Gulf War recession and the long boom of the 1990s. It shows how a handful of interest-rate decisions were argued over and made.
Bush at War
The first of four books on George W. Bush’s presidency: the National Security Council in the weeks after the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the start of the war in Afghanistan. It draws on notes from NSC meetings and interviews with Bush himself. The same year Woodward was the lead reporter on the Post’s 9/11 coverage, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
Plan of Attack
How the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq, from the first war planning in late 2001 to the start of the invasion in March 2003. It covers the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, the disagreements between Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, and the role of the CIA director George Tenet. Bush was interviewed for the book.
The Secret Man
Written after the former FBI associate director W. Mark Felt identified himself as Deep Throat in Vanity Fair in May 2005, more than thirty years after Watergate. Woodward tells how he met Felt, how the source relationship worked, and how he kept the secret for three decades.
Fear
The first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, built from interviews with officials on deep background, covering trade, North Korea, Afghanistan and the Russia investigation. The White House disputed many of its accounts. It sold more than 1.1 million copies in its first week, a record for its publisher Simon & Schuster.
Rage
Based in part on 18 recorded interviews with Trump between December 2019 and July 2020. In a call on 7 February 2020 Trump described the coronavirus as “deadly stuff”, and in March told Woodward “I wanted to always play it down”. The book also covers North Korea, the Kim Jong Un letters and the 2020 racial justice protests.
Peril
Written with Robert Costa, the end of the Trump presidency and the start of Joe Biden’s: the 2020 election, the 6 January attack on the Capitol and the transition. It reported that General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had called his Chinese counterpart to reassure him in the months around the election, which became the most-debated claim in the book.
War
Joe Biden’s national security team and its handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas, published in October 2024. It also reports, from unnamed sources, that Trump sent Vladimir Putin COVID tests in 2020 and may have spoken with him several times after leaving office; a Trump campaign official quoted in the book cast doubt on the contacts.
In What Order to Read Bob Woodward
Most of Woodward’s books stand alone: each covers one institution or one stretch of an administration. The exceptions are pairs and runs. The Final Days follows All the President’s Men, and The Secret Man closes the Watergate story. Bush at War, Plan of Attack, State of Denial and The War Within follow the Bush presidency in sequence, and Fear, Rage and Peril do the same for Trump’s first term, with War picking up under Biden.
If you read only one series, read it in order, because later books refer back to scenes and people introduced earlier. Otherwise, choose by subject: the Supreme Court, the CIA, the Fed or a particular war.
A reading path
1. All the President’s Men (1974)
2. The Final Days (1976)
3. The Brethren (1979)
4. Plan of Attack (2004)
5. Fear (2018)
Everything Else Bob Woodward Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 9 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Clinton and the 1990s
3
3 books · 1994–1999
- 1994The AgendaClinton’s first-year economic plan
- 1996The Choicethe 1996 presidential campaign
- 1999Shadowfive presidents in the shadow of Watergate
The Bush and Obama years
4
4 books · 2006–2012
- 2006State of Denialthe Iraq war after the invasion
- 2008The War Withinthe Iraq troop surge, 2006–2008
- 2010Obama’s Warsthe Afghanistan strategy review
- 2012The Price of Politicsthe 2011 debt-ceiling fight
Later books
2
2 books · 2015–2022
- 2015The Last of the President’s MenNixon aide Alexander Butterfield and the White House taping system
- 2022The Trump Tapeshis 20 recorded interviews with Trump, released as an audiobook, in print in 2023
The years · 1943–2024
Quick facts about Bob Woodward
- Known for
- Woodward is known for reporting Watergate with Carl Bernstein and for decades of inside accounts of how American presidents make decisions, built from interviews with the people in the room.
- 1943
- Born in Geneva, Illinois
- 1972
- Starts reporting on the Watergate break-in
- 2005
- Mark Felt revealed as Deep Throat
- 2024
- War
- Born
- 26 March 1943, Geneva, Illinois; grew up in Wheaton
- Education
- Yale University, BA 1965
- Before journalism
- US Navy communications officer, 1965–1970
- Newspaper
- The Washington Post since 1971, later associate editor
- Pulitzers
- Lead reporter on two Post Pulitzer Prizes: Watergate (1973) and 9/11 coverage (2002)
- Married
- The writer Elsa Walsh, since 1989
The red mark is 1974: All the President’s Men, his and Carl Bernstein’s account of reporting Watergate.
How Bob Woodward Writes: Reconstruction from the Inside
Woodward’s books are built from interviews, most of them on “deep background”: sources speak at length on condition that they are not named, and he then reconstructs meetings, phone calls and private conversations as scenes, often with dialogue and sometimes with what a participant was thinking. He backs this with documents, notes and diaries where he can get them. From Bush at War onward he has also interviewed sitting presidents on the record, and for Rage he recorded 18 conversations with Trump.
The style is plain and chronological, closer to a news report than to the literary New Journalism of his contemporaries. He rarely steps into the frame, and he usually keeps his own judgements to the end of a book, if he offers them at all.
The method has drawn criticism as well as praise. Because sources are mostly unnamed, readers cannot check who said what, and critics, among them Joan Didion in a 1996 essay, have argued that the books favour the people who talk to him. Supporters point to how much of what he reported first, from Watergate to the Iraq war planning, was later confirmed.
Frequently asked questions about Bob Woodward’s books
How many books has Bob Woodward written?
His official site counts 21 books he wrote or co-wrote, 15 of which reached No. 1 on the national nonfiction bestseller lists. This page lists 23 titles: 14 key books, from All the President’s Men (1974) to War (2024), and nine more in the bibliography, including the audio collection The Trump Tapes.
What are Bob Woodward’s books in order?
The key books are All the President’s Men (1974), The Final Days (1976), The Brethren (1979), Wired (1984), Veil (1987), The Commanders (1991), Maestro (2000), Bush at War (2002), Plan of Attack (2004), The Secret Man (2005), Fear (2018), Rage (2020), Peril (2021) and War (2024). The other titles are listed under “Everything Else” above.
Where should I start with Bob Woodward?
With All the President’s Men (1974), his and Carl Bernstein’s account of reporting Watergate. It shows the method behind everything he wrote afterwards. If you want a later book, pick by subject: Plan of Attack for Iraq, Fear for the Trump White House.
What is Bob Woodward’s most famous book?
All the President’s Men (1974), written with Carl Bernstein, about their Watergate reporting for The Washington Post. The 1976 film starred Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. Of his later books, Fear (2018) sold fastest, with more than 1.1 million copies in its first week.
Who was Deep Throat?
W. Mark Felt, the associate director of the FBI during Watergate. Woodward and Bernstein kept his identity secret for more than thirty years; Felt revealed it himself in Vanity Fair in May 2005, and Woodward told the story of their relationship in The Secret Man the same year.
Did Bob Woodward win a Pulitzer Prize?
His reporting was central to two Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The Washington Post: the 1973 Prize for Public Service for the Watergate coverage with Carl Bernstein, and the 2002 Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the 11 September attacks and their aftermath, on which he was the lead reporter. None of his books won a Pulitzer.
Which Bob Woodward books have been made into films?
All the President’s Men became the 1976 film directed by Alan J. Pakula, with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. Wired, his biography of John Belushi, was filmed in 1989.
Are the Trump books a series?
Loosely. Fear (2018) covers the first two years of Trump’s first term, Rage (2020) the period of the pandemic, built on 18 recorded interviews with Trump, and Peril (2021, with Robert Costa) the 2020 election and the handover to Joe Biden. The Trump Tapes (2022) is the audio of his interviews. Each can be read on its own.
What controversies have Woodward’s books faced?
Several. Casey’s widow and others disputed the brief hospital-room exchange with the CIA director William Casey that ends Veil (1987). He was criticised for holding Trump’s February 2020 remarks about the coronavirus until Rage came out that September. And in January 2023 Trump sued him and his publisher over the release of The Trump Tapes; a federal judge in New York dismissed the suit in July 2025, finding Trump had not shown a copyright interest in the interviews.
Is Bob Woodward still alive?
Yes. He was born on 26 March 1943 in Geneva, Illinois. His most recent book, War, was published in October 2024.
Footnotes
- Bob Woodward — Wikipedia
- Fact sheet — BobWoodward.com
- Trump knew coronavirus was ‘deadly’: Woodward book — Al Jazeera, 2020
- New Woodward book on Trump, Putin and Biden — The Washington Post via Boston.com, 2024
- Judge dismisses Trump’s copyright lawsuit against Bob Woodward — AP via Erie News Now, 2025
- Woodward at Elon University Fall Convocation — Elon News, 2016
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“We don’t know enough about what goes on in the centers of power.”
— Bob Woodward, Fall Convocation address, Elon University (2016)
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