Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General - Softcover

Schaller, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195063325 ISBN 13: 9780195063325

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1990

Synopsis

With his chiseled face, corn-cob pipe, and a voice which "could trumpet and drum," General Douglas MacArthur looked the part of a "heaven born general." Although he became arguably the best-known and most flamboyant American military leader of the twentieth century, the men who served in the trenches of Bataan sneeringly referred to him as "Dugout Doug." FDR privately termed MacArthur's defense of Corregidor "criminal," and Truman called his self-promoted "return" to the Philippines "a fiasco."
This eye-opening book, written by one of America's leading authorities on United States-East Asian relations, offers an intimately detailed portrait of MacArthur, focusing particularly on the General's two decades in the Far East. Far from depicting him in a flattering light, Michael Schaller demythologizes the "American Caesar," and along the way gives us an insightful analysis of American foreign policy in Asia during those years.
Revealing MacArthur's military failings, Schaller describes the costly consequences of MacArthur's indecisive Pacific Island campaign during World War II, which the popular press often hailed as brilliant. He also examines MacArthur's three futile attempts at the presidency and his destructive interference in foreign policy--ranging from his manipulation of policies in occupied Japan and his constant attacks on Truman's policy in China, to the Korean War when the seventy-year-old general willfully risked war with China and the Soviet Union to salvage his pride and humiliate his political enemies in Washington.
This thought-provoking biography provides invaluable background to America's present relations with the Far East, as well as an unforgettable portrait of a man driven by talent, opportunism, vision, egotism, and jealousy.

About this title

About the Author

About the Author:
Michael Schaller, Professor of History at the University of Arizona, is the author of the highly acclaimed The American Occupation of Japan and The United States and China in the Twentieth Century, now available in a second edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In this revisionist study, Schaller, history professor at the Univ. of Arizona, argues that MacArthur's commands in the Philippines, the Southwest Pacific, Japan and Korea made drastic demands on him as a statesman and military leader but that he fell grievously short in both respects. The American public, according to the author, was duped by MacArthur's talent for publicity into believing he beat the Japanese virtually alone although his actual role was a supporting one. Schaller contends that MacArthur's occupation administration in Japan implemented reform programs already laid out in Washington, but he obscures the general's vital role in the success of the implementation. He suggests that MacArthur's concern with social justice for the Japanese was less important to him than building political support in the States (he hoped to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1948). Schaller reveals his bias early in the study by the attention he devotes to MacArthur's romantic setbacks between world wars, quoting scurrilous remarks made by the general's former wife at cocktail parties. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0195063325
• ISBN 13: 9780195063325
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352