Jean Edward Smith
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY,
  ,The Christian Science Monitor â€¢ St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
,In his magisterial bestseller ,FDR, ,Jean Edward Smith gave us a fresh, modern look at one of the most indelible figures in American history. Now this peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about Americaâ€™s thirty-fourth president. As America searches for new heroes to lead it out of its present-day predicaments, Jean Edward Smithâ€™s achievement lies in reintroducing us to a hero from the past whose virtues have become clouded in the mists of history. ,Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kansas, to West Point, to Paris under Pershing, and beyond. Drawing on a wealth of untapped primary sources, Smith provides new insight into Ikeâ€™s maddening apprenticeship under Douglas MacArthur in Washington and the Philippines. Then the whole panorama of World War II unfolds, with Eisenhowerâ€™s superlative generalship forging the Allied path to victory through multiple reversals of fortune in North Africa and Italy, culminating in the triumphant invasion of Normandy. Smith also gives us an intriguing examination of Ikeâ€™s finances, details his wartime affair with Kay Summersby, and reveals the inside story of the 1952 Republican convention that catapulted him to the White House.,Smithâ€™s chronicle of Eisenhowerâ€™s presidential years is as compelling as it is comprehensive. Derided by his detractors as a somnambulant caretaker, Eisenhower emerges in Smithâ€™s perceptive retelling as both a canny politician and a skillful, decisive leader. Smith convincingly portrays an Eisenhower who engineered an end to Americaâ€™s three-year no-win war in Korea, resisted calls for preventative wars against the Soviet Union and China, and boldly deployed the Seventh Fleet to protect Formosa from invasion. This Eisenhower, Smith shows us, stared down Khrushchev over Berlin and forced the withdrawal of British, French, and Israeli forces from the Suez Canal. He managed not only to keep the peaceâ€”after Ike made peace in Korea, not one American soldier was killed in action during his tenureâ€”but also to enhance Americaâ€™s prestige in the Middle East and throughout the world.,Domestically, Eisenhower reduced defense spending, balanced the budget, constructed the interstate highway system, and provided social security coverage for millions who were self-employed. Ike believed that traditional American values encompassed change and progress.,Unmatched in insight, ,Eisenhower in War and Peace, at last gives us an Eisenhower for ,our, timeâ€”and for the ages.,Praise for ,Eisenhower in War and Peace,
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, â€œ[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhowerâ€™s] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.â€,â€”The Washington Post, Â , â€œHighly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhowerâ€™s] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements.â€â€”,The, ,Wall Street Journal, Â , â€œAlways engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and Dâ€™Este, this is the best.â€â€”,Publishers Weekly, (starred review)
Biography,History,Politics,Presidents,Nonfiction,North American Hi...,American History,Politics,Presidents,Us Presidents,War,Biography Memoir,War,World War II
Eisenhower in War and Peace