Eisenhower: A Life

Accomplished historian and biographer Johnson (Churchill) produces an engaging, if bizarrely brief, survey of the life of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Johnson’s work covers all the major facets of Eisenhower’s career, beginning with his boyhood in rural Kansas and ending with his tenure as president of the United States. It is not a serious academic biography, but rather an overview of Eisenhower’s life, with an emphasis on his personality and character, including his flair for public relations. Where Johnson addresses Eisenhower-as-president, he emphasizes his deviousness and intentional manipulation of his public image to obscure his own high intelligence. Johnson views Eisenhower positively and asserts that Eisenhower not being a combat general but a staff officer for most of his career contributed to his success as president. Johnson’s contribution will serve as a great introduction to “Ike” the man, but anyone interested in the details of WWII generalship or the politics of the Eisenhower administration will have to look elsewhere. (Oct.)