Snag Your Copy Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life Depicted By Carlo D'Este Accessible From Digital Format

and interesting book about Eisenhower's early years through WWII surrender of Germany, The early years are detailed, intimate and tells the story of the man we know as Ike.
The prewar years, courtship with Mamie provide context to decisions he makes later, The WWII portion is long but feels underdetailed as there was so many things to comment aboutof course the book would be longer than War and Peace if it was more specific.
The author appears enthralled with Ikethis make the stories appear more personal, Criticism is outlined, but there is a respect and love for Eisenhower, Readable, enjoyable. I've read a couple of biographies of Eisenhower, How is this one different Like the author who wrote Patton: A Genius of War, This one is about the military background and how Ike became the supreme Allied Commander in Europe and North Africa during World War II.
He masterminded and planned the amphibious assaults of North Africa, Italy, Sicily, and Normandy as well as the invasion of Germany.
He was also a diplomat when American and British commands were tense especially between Patton and Montgomery.
Anyone who is interested in World War II and biographies of those who led operations in the theaters during World War II.
I highly recommend this. Interesting Read filled with indepth insights into Ike's Youth, West Point and the challenges of a Military Leader up thru WWII.
. . provides inside look into the relationships IKE had with such iconic figures as MacArthur,Churchill, Roosevelt, Patton, Bradley, Marshall, and Monty.
Highly recommend to fans of Military History!!!! Extremely detailed account of the development of an interesting and intellegent man complex and VERY human at times.
The continual interplay of Politics was very enlightening and telling of what happens in all human endeavors! Worth the read! D'Este writes an exhaustive biography of Eisenhower up to the end of the European theater of WWII in May.
Clearly, he spent many years working on this massive tome, Exquisite detail is evident throughout the book, starting with the background of Eisenhower's father, David, continuing through Eisenhower's youth and his often contentious relationships with his several brothers, on through his years at West Point, then his glacially slow rise in the Army that culminates with him becoming General of the Army and Allied Supreme Commander.
The 'Notes' section itself almost serves as supplementary reading!

D'Este is especially good at debunking the myriad myths that have sprung up around Eisenhower from alleged fights in high school all the way to his supposed affair with Kay Summersby.
On the latter, D'Este provides a fairly solid case to substantiate his assertion that while we can never withaccuracy know the truth it would be really hard to believe that an affair had indeed occurred.
That Eisenhower was guilty of poor judgment in the matter is beyond question,

I enjoyed D'Este's chronicle of Eisenhower's professional frustrations over the course of his firstyears in the Army not seeing combat in WWI, being reprimanded for his views on the importance of tank training, being chosen at certain locations because he was a good football coach, his boiling anger at being branded a "staff officer" who has no combat experience when he just wanted to command troops, his toiling under Douglas MacArthur's massive ego, and finally when he achieves the ultimate recognition by General George Marshall and FDR his constant attempts to keep the Allies together.
D'Este's depictions of Eisenhower's relationships with all of the relevant players in WWII combine to provide an excellent character study of Eisenhower.
Despite the many mistakes that he made and there were a plethora of them, somehow he managed to hold everything together and come out victorious.
I seriously question how many people could realistically have accomplished what he did, and did it so admirably.


D'Este, while certainly admiring of Eisenhower's deft handling of many gigantic egos Churchill, Patton, MacArthur, Bradley, Montgomery, de Gaulle, FDR, provides a balanced portrait of Eisenhower in relation to his family.
He always put his family a distinct second place to his career, While not necessarily treating his wife, Mamie, poorly, he was not husband of the year either.
His relationship with his son, John, was strained and difficult with Eisenhower either unwilling or incapable of expressing his true feelings to his son.
Eisenhower had this same problem on a professional basis with Patton: unable to compliment and acknowledge accomplishments.
Eisenhower refused to fly back to Kansas to attend his father's funeral, this prior to Eisenhower being named a commander in Europe.
He could have went back he chose not to, for reasons only he knew,

Originally, I was going to rate this book three because of the following: I am more interested in Eisenhower's presidential years than his military years, and this biography contains none of that time period I read it to gain a better insight into him as a person the book abruptly ends with the surrender of Germany D'Este does not discuss the difficulties Eisenhower faced in troop reduction in Europe, not does he discuss his later time as Chief of Staff and then commander of NATO along with the quick ending, we get no sense of how Eisenhower really felt at the end, and what his feelings were on finally being able to return to the U.
S. and, I would have liked to have seen D'Este discuss briefly Eisenhower's postwar relationships with the people that he worked so closely with throughout the war.
Despite those things, D'Este deserves better than three simply because he invested so much into this

book and he made it eminently readable.
This is a thorough assessment of General of the Army Eisenhower! Carlo D'Este is complementary and critical of General Ike's leadership during the Second World War.
The author also weaves the family life of the General throughout the book, Ike's relationship with his parents, brothers, spouse, son and with his WWII driver, Kay Summersby are addressed giving some light to the character and upbringing of Dwight Eisenhower.
The author is very critical of General of the Army Bradley's style and substance of leadership especially his handling of the first two days of the Ardennes, Battle of the Bulge.
D'Este is less critical and somewhat defensive of Field Marshall Montgomery, He attributes many of the actions of General Montgomery to his drive for victory rather than from personal conceit or narcissism.
He thinks most of the WWII leaders and post war historians got it wrong in their analysis of Monty.
This is a very good read and I recommend it to all those interested in WWII, and General Eisenhower.
Retired Army officer and military historian, D'Este has written a comprehensive biography of Ike's military career.
He begins with a brief family history and Dwight David's Ike humble birth in Denison, Texas.
D'Este takes a balanced, critical view of Eisenhower sitelink ipl. org/div/potus/ddeisenh detailing the strength and weaknesses of his military leadership and connecting to traits leading to his political success.
My personal interest in reading about Ike's life began with knowledge that my maternal grandfather was a schoolmate Grandfather Reade was four years older than Ike of Ike's in Abilene sitelink baconlinks. com/DDE/DDE. html Kansas and that their families were neighbors and friends, Another connection, both the Eisenhower's and the Reade's had a brood of seven boys, lj I really enjoyed this book, I would have given it a five if it were not for stopping at the end of World War II.
I didn't realize that the book didn't cover his later life, It was very detailed about the war which was a little slow, although interesting, Although people are very hard on Eisenhower and his decisions now, it is easy to be critical of a person in hindsight.
He had a great many lives in his hands and who knows how incapacitating that would be if you were truly in his place.
I still admire him and all he went through in his life, Eisenhower: A soldier's Life was my first introduction to Carlo D'Este and he didn't disappoint although I would say that he is likely not my favorite author that still is no discredit to his ability.
His writing flowed well and felt like a story and he really brought Ike's life alive.


The book itself covers between Ike's birth and youth all the way to the end of World War, which, to me is a rather strange layout and it does not appear that he will be making a book about Eisenhowers later years in a sequel so it was kind of awkward in that sense.
It also strikes me as odd that there isn't more written on him, although I suppose there isn't nearly as much to write given Ike's military career was relatively boring so to speak and calm as he did not see nearly as much action as MacArthur or Patton or arguably Marshall.


It was also quite interesting in this book to see how brilliant Ike really was as a soldier while also interesting after reading the biographies of MacArthur and seeing in them, his relationship with Ike, to then see the perspective of Ike toward MacArthur and their relationship on the other foot.
Definitely made a reassess your opinion, It was also interesting to see how D'Este subtly posed the question of if Ike was in fact that right man for the job to command the operations of Torch and Husky and Overlord given that he had always been an office soldier and having no real experience commanding men.
I personally come down on the side that while Ike may not have been as in command or authoritative or decisive as perhaps Alan Brooke or Montgomery and tended to put the British as priority over the Americans in leading operations which Patton and Marshall didn't like, he definitely brought a very diplomatic approach as the commander which proved to be to their benefit.


I did not score the book higher not out of lack of enthusiasm for the writer and his abilities but rather I felt the story kind of shifted gears at the commencement of World Warand D'Este almost seemed to have changed his approach to the writing no longer making it as a story style but rather breaking the war down tactically at least it seemed to me which kind of slowed the book down a little.

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