Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics

In September 1978 William Quandt, a member of the White House National Security Council staff, spent thirteen momentous days at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, where three world leaders were holding secret negotiations. When U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin emerged from their talks, they announced a signal accomplishment: the first peace agreement between Israel and one of its Arab neighbors, Sadat's Egypt.

Quandt, drawing on what he saw and heard during the talks and on official documents, wrote Camp David in order to show how presidents negotiate difficult issues. His book has become, with time, a scholarly classic and, as Martin Indyk notes in his foreword, "a model of critical, in-depth, fact-based, policy-relevant research."

Quandt's book is not only an eyewitness account but also a scholar's reconstruction of a milestone event in Middle East diplomacy, with insights into the people, politics, and policies. His Camp David has provided a comprehensive and lasting guide to the difficult negotiations surrounding the talks, including the fraught scenario leading up to the meetings at the presidential retreat and the talks and accord that would lead to Sadat and Begin jointly receiving the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.

Praise for Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics "The most authoritative account of a major historic event, written with scrupulous scholarship by a key behind-the-scenes participant." —Zbigniew Brzezinski, Adviser to the President for National Security Affairs, 1977–81

"An excellent piece of work... will represent a major contribution to the academic literature on American Middle East policy during the Carter administration. No one but Bill Quandt could, in my view, write so knowledgeable, yet so judiciously balanced, an account." —Hermann Frederick Eilts, Director, Boston University Center for International Relations, and ambassador to Egypt, 1973–79

"Quandt writes as a participant in the process and as a thoughtful, proven scholar, an expert on international diplomacy and on the Middle East." — Foreign Affairs