Reflecting on 9/11 with Garrett Graff the author of "The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11.

The Political Life

Today we are joined by bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff who has spent two decades covering politics, technology, and national security, and is now recognized as one of the nation’s most prolific and wide-ranging journalists and historians. His award-winning work—including nine books on topics ranging from presidential campaigns, Watergate, 9/11, and cybersecurity, to D-Day and the U.S. government’s Cold War Doomsday plans, as well as dozens of magazine articles, essays, podcasts, and documentaries—uses history to explain the story of today, illuminating where we’ve been as a country and where we’re headed as a world. Today, he’s a columnist for the Washington Post, where he writes on leadership, serves as the director of cyber initiatives at the Aspen Institute, and hosts the history podcast, "Long Shadow," which this year received a 2024 Edward R. Murrow Award. The former editor of POLITICO Magazine and a longtime contributor to WIRED and CNN, he’s written for publications like Esquire, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Foreign Affairs, and authored nine books—including the #1 national bestseller "The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11," and the New York Times bestseller "Watergate: A New History," which was a finalist in 2023 for the Pulitzer Prize in History. His most recent books include "UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There" and "When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day." Graff is a regular voice and analyst on NPR, PBS NewsHour, the History Channel, speaker at high-profile venues like corporate conferences, presidential libraries, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, and taught journalism and social media at Georgetown University for nearly a decade. Among other multimedia, TV, and film projects, he was executive producer of “While the Rest of Us Die,” a two-season VICE TV series based on his book "Raven Rock," and a consulting producer on the blockbuster Netflix documentary “Turning Point,” about the Cold War.