IRB TOW #1

“American Caesar”

William Manchester

Jay Mudambi

This book was recommended to me by my brother who insisted it was the best biography he had ever read, so far it’s turning out to be just that. This biography details the extraordinary life of an American legend, Douglas MacArthur. The introduction called him “larger than life” and “a great thundering paradox of a man”. Yet for someone who is such a controversial figure in American history, people know surprisingly little about him. George C. Kenney stated, “Very few people really know Douglas MacArthur,” William Manchester set out to change that. But the story does not start with him, the book starts with his father Arthur MacArthur, and tells the story of how he gained glory and rank at the battle of Missionary Ridge overlooking Chattanooga, Tennessee. You could say that Douglas MacArthur was destined for greatness. He grew up the son of a Civil War hero and spent his childhood moving between forts across the American West. He learned to ride a horse and shoot a gun before he was seven. Yet his mother also kept his hair long and dressed him in skirts up until he was ten. Manchester’s descriptions of the paradoxes that made this man who he was is a common theme through the books far. He doesn’t want people who read this book to walk away with one perception of MacArthur, he wants them to see the complexities that made up this American icon. Manchester was no stranger to the Second World War either, he served in the pacific theater on Okinawa and was severely wounded in action. I am 214 pages into this chronologically organized book and the Second World War is still a long ways off. This shows the amount of detail that Manchester has gathered on MacArthur’s life. There are also quotes from people in all stages of MacArthur’s life talking about him. These people range from Members of Congress when he had to testify before them while at West Point, to Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was MacArthur’s aid in the Philippines. MacArthur was a Victorian trapped in the 20^th century, yet he still managed to define the first half of that century.

MacArthur at West Point