Dwight D. Eisenhower: The American Presidents Series: The 34th President, 1953-1961
By Tom Wicker
2.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
An American icon and hero faces a nation--and a world--in transition
A bona-fide American hero at the close of World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower rode an enormous wave of popularity into the Oval Office seven years later. Though we may view the Eisenhower years through a hazy lens of 1950s nostalgia, historians consider his presidency one of the least successful. At home there was civil rights unrest, McCarthyism, and a deteriorating economy; internationally, the Cold War was deepening. But despite his tendency toward "brinksmanship," Ike would later be revered for "keeping the peace." Still, his actions and policies at the onset of his career, covered by Tom Wicker, would haunt Americans of future generations.
Tom Wicker
For over thirty years, Tom Wicker covered American politics at The New York Times, where he began writing the Times's "In the Nation" column. He was the author of several books, including One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream and JFK & LBJ, as well as two novels.
Related to Dwight D. Eisenhower
Related ebooks
Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAccidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5President Kennedy: Profile of Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Martin Van Buren: A Captivating Guide to the Man Who Served as the Eighth President of the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll the Presidents' Children Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ranking the Vice Presidents: True Tales and Trivia, from John Adams to Joe Biden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRobert Kennedy: Brother Protector Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Portrait of a President Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speaking of Freedom: The Collected Speeches Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5JFK in the Senate: Pathway to the Presidency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln's Planner: A Unique Look at the Civil War Through the President's Daily Activities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter the Fall: The Remarkable Comeback of Richard Nixon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Wilkes Booth and Robert Lincoln: Rivals in Love? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohn Kennedy: A Political Profile Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary: “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956" by Fredrik Logevall - Discussion Prompts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Garfield & the Civil War: For Ohio and the Union Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry V (MAXNotes Literature Guides) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLincoln at Home: Two Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln's Family Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tiger Wore Spikes: An Informal Biography of Ty Cobb Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChester A. Arthur: The Accidental President Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Albert Gore, Sr.: A Political Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJames Madison and the Making of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5President McKinley: Architect of the American Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Jay: Founding Father Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robert F. Kennedy: The Brother Within Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLincoln: The Screenplay Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated) (Two Pence books) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Dwight D. Eisenhower
11 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Some presidents spend their entire careers waiting for their big moment, because, frankly, they never amount to much else. Woodrow Wilson was a good example: A bigoted college professor who managed to back into politics, and won the presidency mostly because the opposition was divided, but still felt that he had the right to be a moral example to the world. For such a man, a biography that is mostly about his presidency is probably in order.But Eisenhower?Remember, this is the man who organized the Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy in World War II. One can debate how well he did so, but he managed to win the war in Europe. That's why he became President, for pity's sake.And you'd never know it from this book. It spends only about ten pages on Eisenhower's life before the Presidency, and about one sentence on what came after. It is not a presidential biography; it's a history of a presidency.Admittedly the books in the American Presidents series operate under strict limits: They have to compress their whole contents into about a hundred and fifty pages. It's often a tight squeeze. Something does have to give. So the volume about James A. Garfield, for instance, gives inordinate space to his slow and agonizing death; that's fair, because it's what people remembered. But even that volume had more about the rest of Garfield's life than this book has about Eisenhower's, and again, Eisenhower was only president because he had been a general, and his career as a general informed his career as a president. You can't understand the one without the other. Yet this book asks you to try -- and, frankly, gets rather bogged down as a result. Too much cold war rivalry with Khrushchev mixed with too many loose ends (for example, the book never even tells us what eventually happened to Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 pilot who was lost over the Soviet Union, resulting in an end to nuclear negotiations).This is a short, readable book that is a useful reminder of a period few now remember. But I just don't think it's the whole story.