Ike: His Life and Times - Hardcover

Brendon, Piers

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060155086 ISBN 13: 9780060155087

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1986

Synopsis

Examines the contradictory interpretations of Dwight David Eisenhower's effectiveness as a leader and analyzes his paradoxical personality--one possessed of strong passions but a weak character, noble instincts but irresolute will, and generous impluses but selfish motives

About this title

From Library Journal

Presenting his grandfather as the key figure in Nazi Germany's overthrow, David Eisenhower reminds his readers why Ike was so popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The Eisenhower of these pages utilizes the strengths and weaknesses of his subordinates. He perceives the importance of Soviet cooperation in achieving final victory. He balances the complex requirements of coalition warfare. He imposes strategic vision on operations from Overlord to V-E Day. He demonstrates, in short, the qualities of the successful president his grandson proposes to describe in a later volume. For David, the general's blemishes only enhance his stature. Brendon's Eisenhower is unable and unwilling to rise above the limited background of Abilene, Kansas and the U.S. Army. He is indecisive, changing his position to fit his associates. Both authors are remarkably tendentious. Brendon's bitter disappointment at Eisenhower's failure to take 1980s liberal positions on the Cold War, civil rights, etc., is surprising in view of his characterization of Eisenhower as a small-town conservative. If David Eisenhower exaggerates the general's degree of control over events, Brendon minimizes Eisenhower's role in postwar U.S. society. Defeating the Germans demanded a captain approaching greatness whose potential for higher office might be unproven but can not be dismissed with Brendon's facility.Dennis E. Showalter, History Dept., Colorado Coll.,
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

By a British historian and biographer of Churchill, this could fairly be subtitled Warts and All. Though not an outright attack on Eisenhower, it is a three-dimensional portrait in which the negative aspects predominate. Ike comes across as a man of endless contradictions, combining "common decency with uncommon deviousness." Brendon lauds his great accomplishments as leader of the wartime coalition, but paints a very unflattering picture of his "shaming compromises" with Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s (which he calls "a classic abdication of responsibility") and his refusal to take a stand on civil rights. Brendon is also critical of the way Ike "turned his country into a global secret policeman." The book is a pleasure to read, however, despite its largely negative point of view, because of Brendon's lucid style, lively sense of humor and psychological insight. Photos.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0060155086
• ISBN 13: 9780060155087
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 478