“This is quite simply the most profound book to have been written on the subject of American foreign policy since the attacks of 9/11, indeed, since the end of the cold war,” writes renowned historian Niall Ferguson of Philip Bobbitt’s latest book, Terror and Consent, in which the author argues that the U.S. has ignored the role of law in devising its strategy in the war on terror, with fateful consequences, and has failed to reform law in light of the changed strategic context. Bobbitt is also the author of the bestseller The Shield of Achilles and is the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence and the Director of the Center for National Security at Columbia University.

Eric Lichtblau received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in recognition of his stories on the NSA’s wiretapping program. A reporter in the New York Times Washington bureau covering the Justice Department and national security issues, Lichtblau’s new book details the development of the Vice President’s warrantless wiretapping policy in the weeks after 9/11, and the intense pressure that the White House brought to bear on the New York Times to quash the story.