When the first great book about the New York Times was excerpted in Harper’s Magazine in 1969, the magazine’s cover proclaimed its scoop with an imaginary Times headline: The One Major Story America’s Foremost Newspaper Has Never Covered In Detail: The New York Times.
The headline was accurate, and when The Kingdom and the Power by Gay Talese was published, it was an immediate sensation. In that far-off decade, the story Talese told was fresh and captivating. The Times’ own review said it was unlike any other newspaper book because it was “done in the novelistic style of Truman Capote, William Manchester and Theodore White, moving real contemporary men through real contemporary events … the book is rich in intimate detail, personal insights and characterization”.
