Running the World is an unprecedented look behind the scenes at the "most powerful committee in the history of the world"-the men and women closest to the president of the United States who make America's decisions affecting war and peace, who are the architects of everything from covert operations to market bailouts to combating terrorism. This is the National Security Council, and its importance has never been clearer.

Drawing from 130 exclusive interviews with many of the best-known and the most-significant figures to have played a central role in shaping America's national security and foreign policies, David Rothkopf depicts with an eye for both personal detail and historical implications the real events from which today's headlines and Tom Clancy novels are drawn.

David Rothkopf is a former managing director of Kissinger Associates and is Chairman of Intellibridge Corporation, a company he founded with Anthony Lake. As deputy under secretary of commerce, Rothkopf served on the NSC and knows personally many of its key players of the last twenty-five years. He is an adjunct professor of International Affairs at Columbia University, a visiting scholar of the Carnegie Foundation, and a regular commentator and columnist for publications such as the Washington Post and Foreign Affairs. He lives in Washington DC.