The Collected Library, Including Americana and Early Photography

London: Printed by T.H. for Edward Dod, 1646. First edition. 4to. (xv), 386 pp. Full brown calf, worn, stamped in blind, gilt school-gift stamp on front board, red morocco spine label From the library of McGeorge Bundy, with his ownership signature on front free endpaper; endpapers lightly offset from leather; small closed tear to dedication leaf repaired with cello tape; scattered foxing. ESTC R1093

First edition of Thomas Browne's "Vulgar Errors", from the library of McGeorge Bundy (1919-1996).

Part of a family with roots in education and public service, McGeorge Bundy served as a young intelligence officer in World War II. After graduate work, he became a professor of Government at Harvard, and later served as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences there. From 1961-66 he was the National Security Advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He was involved in many of that era’s major foreign policy decisions and controversies, including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the sharply increasing U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. From 1966 to 1979 he served as president of the Ford Foundation, where his team led work supporting civil rights, the national expansion of public television, environmental action, ethical investing, and international development and cooperation. As professor of history at New York University from 1979 until his death in 1996, he studied and wrote about the history of nuclear weapons, becoming a forceful advocate for global arms control.