Lloyd Blankfein Recommended Books

An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him.

Winner of the Pulitzer for History, No Ordinary Time is a chronicle of one of the most vibrant & revolutionary periods in US history. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin weaves together a number of story lines—the Roosevelt’s marriage & partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, & FDR’s White House & its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin melds these into an intimate portrait of Eleanor & Franklin Roosevelt & of the time during which a new, modern America was born.Preface"The decisive hour has come" "A few nice boys with BB guns""Back to the Hudson" "Living here is very oppressive""No ordinary time" "I am a juggler" "I can't do anything about her" "Arsenal of democracy" "Business as usual" "A great hour to live""A completely changed world""Two little boys playing soldier""What can we do to help?" "By god, if it ain't Old Frank!""We are striking back" "The greatest man I have ever known" "It is blood on your hands" "It was a sight I will never forget""I want to sleep and sleep" "Suspended in space" "The old master still had it""So darned busy" "It is good to be home" "Everybody is crying" "A new country is being born"AfterwordNotesBibliographyAcknowledgmentsIndexAfterword

On May 1, 1915, with World War I entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “greyhounds” — the fastest liner then in service — and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game. As the Lusitania made her way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small — hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more — all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. Gripping and important, "Dead Wake" captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

On a winter day in 1903, on the remote Outer Banks of North Carolina, two brothers changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe that The age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air powered machine carrying a pilot.Far more than a couple of Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, Wilbur and Orville Wright were men of exceptional ability, unyielding determination, and far-ranging intellectual interest and curiosity. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough tells the dramatic story of how these courageous brothers taught the world how to fly - and how their devoted sister, Katherine, played a far more important role than has been generally understood.

In the initial volume of the Revolution Trilogy Rick Atkinson recounts the first twenty-one months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. It is a saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathanael Greene, the bumpkin who becomes a brilliant battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, who proves to be the wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. The story is also told from the British perspective, making the mortal conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling.