Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life - Softcover

D'Este, Carlo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805056874 ISBN 13: 9780805056877

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 2003

Synopsis

"An excellent book . . . D'Este's masterly account comes into its own." ―The Washington Post Book World

Born into hardscrabble poverty in rural Kansas, the son of stern pacifists, Dwight David Eisenhower graduated from high school more likely to teach history than to make it. Casting new light on this profound evolution, Eisenhower chronicles the unlikely, dramatic rise of the supreme Allied commander.

With full access to private papers and letters, Carlo D'Este has exposed for the first time the untold myths that have surrounded Eisenhower and his family for over fifty years, and identified the complex and contradictory character behind Ike's famous grin and air of calm self-assurance.

Unlike other biographies of the general, Eisenhower captures the true Ike, from his youth to the pinnacle of his career and afterward.

About this title

Review:

There is hardly a shortage of books about Dwight Eisenhower, but Carlo D'Este's Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life stands tall in this forest by virtue of the author's insistence on a too-often forgotten rule of biographers: show--don't tell about--the subject. Though D'Este doesn't neglect Eisenhower's early years (his sketch of the man's rambunctious West Point years is hearteningly entertaining), the book concentrates on his military career, including his years of treading water in the Philippines. By far the most trenchant sections, however, deal with World War II (including a keen look at the little-discussed North African campaign.) We see Ike, who had a famous temper and, when angry, a most indelicate vocabulary, chain-smoking cigarettes and unable to sleep in the weeks leading to D-day; refusing--out of disgust for German atrocities--to be present at the signing of the articles of surrender; bantering, though his heart was heavy, with enlisted men; wrestling contentiously with MacArthur and Field Marshall Montgomery. We read excerpts of his letters to Mamie and are privy to, perhaps, his laying the groundwork for a political career. A Soldier's Life, long but brisk, sympathetic but not adoring, rigorous but never tedious, is a commendable biography. --H. O'Billovich

About the Author:

Carlo D'Este, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and a distinguished military historian, is the author of Patton: A Genius for War and three other books on World War II, all of which received high praise. He lives in New Seabury, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0805056874
• ISBN 13: 9780805056877
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 880