MacArthur Reconsidered: General Douglas MacArthur as a Wartime Commander

by James Ellman

James Ellman digs deep, connects the dots, and concludes that General Douglas MacArthur was decidedly not a military genius.
One of America's most controversial generals, Douglas MacArthur’s rise through the U.S. Army’s ranks was meteoric. However, he did not lead large formations of men in combat until he assumed command of forces in the Philippines in 1941. When war commenced with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, MacArthur’s performance on the battlefield was a failure: he underestimated the Japanese, and his poorly trained forces were outmaneuvered and outfought by a much smaller invading force. However, in what became a repeating hallmark of his career, he successfully portrayed his actions to much of the American people as brilliant and heroic regardless of victory or defeat. After fleeing to Australia, MacArthur famously announced, “I will return,” and followed through on a quest to retake Manila regardless of its impact on Allied global strategy or its cost in American, Australian, and Filipino blood.
In his subsequent role as America’s shogun in Tokyo, MacArthur was again surprised by an enemy he underestimated. The Korean War yielded his greatest victory, at Inchon, but also his greatest defeat, along the Yalu River. Unwilling to accept anything but complete victory, he openly defied President Truman: MacArthur fatally undermined chances for an early peace, planned to seed a great swath of enemy territory with radioactive cobalt, and attempted to widen a conflict which threatened to become a third world war. Raging against his subsequent firing, he only truly faded away after he was publicly criticized by a panoply of America’s greatest WWII generals.
Today, MacArthur still polarizes. Many biographies agree he was a great and patriotic leader marred by a few failures. Ellman argues the opposite: MacArthur was a lackluster battlefield commander who suffered stunning defeats while undermining the command structure of our military.

Genres: History, Biography, Military Fiction, World War II, Military History

296 pages, Hardcover

Published July 1, 2023

Reviews

[James Rooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was another foray of mine into dialectics because MacArthur has always stood out to me as a great wartime commander. To be sure he had his flaws and was not infallible, despite his occasional delusion.

This book claims to be unbiased and impartial, but it seems that the author is determined to interpret every episode in MacArthur's career in the most unfavorable light possible. We hear over and over again that MacArthur employed incompetent cronies, that he rarely visited the frontlines, that he didn't have much of an idea of what was going on, that he was lax in his preparations, that he trumpeted his successes and concealed his defeats. This is, I suppose, one way of looking at it.

I could quibble over various minor inaccuracies that I encountered among the text, such as the suggestion that the Soviet fleet at Vladivostok posed some sort of threat to the Japan, or the author's description of prevailing winds over Korea in which he said Korea is east of the Kanto Plain. Or repeating the old legend that Rome salted the fields at Carthage, which is more like pop history and regarding which an academic historian ought to know better.

This would be petty and pedantic, I feel, so I would limit what criticisms I have to the argument of MacArthur as a poor leader of men. First off I would suggest that it is suspicious that the author would dismiss MacArthur's achievements as administrator of Japan because they were irrelevant to his leadership capabilities, but would devote dozens of pages to the dispute between Truman and MacArthur.

Suspicious because the record in Japan makes MacArthur look relatively better, so it can't be touched upon. In my mind the constitutional dispute between MacArthur and Truman is extremely important but it does not have much to do with MacArthur as commander.

This might seem somewhat facetious, but none of MacArthur's proposals were accepted, and they had no impact on the fighting men or on any operations in Korea except insofar as they led to MacArthur's eventual dismissal.

I'm sure it delighted Ellman to be able to relate that the JCS repudiated MacArthur and denied that they ever desired to expand the war against China, since that makes MacArthur look like a buffoon, but this has much more to do with politics than with military operations.

I wonder if Ellman is Australian, I was unable to discover where he was from but he uses words like 'petrol' for gasoline and I suspect that he's Australian because he repeats the lions led by donkeys myth, saying that wherever the Australians were defeated it was due to the stupidity of the British (or Americans) who commanded them, and then he made the bold claim that the Australians were the best troops in the whole war. Really? Better than the Germans? This is a bold assertion.

It would also explain the antipathy towards MacArthur, since Mac did tend to downplay the contributions of the Australians and did leave them behind in New Guinea while he continued on to the Philippines. But I would have two suggestions regarding that. One, the Philippines as an American colony and American responsibility would lead MacArthur to naturally wish that their liberation be done by Americans, and secondly, the Australians were not very numerous and it's hard to see why they would complain about not having to fight more stubborn Japanese. If I were Australian in 1944 I would have been happy to stay in New Guinea rather than grapple with more Japanese in Mindanao and Leyte. Ellman himself notes how terrible the battle for Manila was, why would any Australian want to be there?

I might say I'm surprised that Ellman did not deal with the issue of the Brisbane Line, which MacArthur claimed the Australian Government decided upon which would have lead to the abandonment of New Guinea and even large areas of Australia itself. The Australian Government disputed this, and this ties in with Ellman's criticism of MacArthur's claim that he originated the idea of forward defense in New Guinea.

While it might be true that the Australians had already decided upon that, credit should be given to MacArthur for deciding upon an immediate counteroffensive, a story well-told by Harry Gailey in MacArthur Strikes Back.

I read a review of this book by Robert Young, who argues that the chapter on the fall of the Philippines is the strongest in the work. I disagree, I tend to think it was rather weaker than Young would have it.

My core issue is that surprise and deception should be more widely studied by academic historians writing on military subjects. Because we get no comparisons or analogies here. Ellman says that MacArthur was surprised in the Philippines despite all the indications of attack.

Again we turn to Wohlstetter here as the gold standard, demonstrating that these indications were not so obvious at the time. Furthermore, Wohlstetter's book contains a chapter specifically dealing with the surprise at Clark Field.

Ellman says that MacArthur was convinced that carriers did this strike, and the reason for that is because Japanese aircraft from Taiwan could not have reached Luzon except at the last minute they devised a means to carry more fuel en route.

According to MacArthur's information, which was accurate when he received it, the Japanese could not attack Luzon from Taiwan. So it's hardly incredible that they surprised him when they did it, especially since he apparently never figured out how they did it.

Ellman is evidently under the impression that this should have been obvious. He makes the same argument in regards to Korea. Here we get some interesting insights into Ellman's thought process. He concedes that everyone else in the United States and in South Korea were taken by surprise by the North Korean attack, but singles out MacArthur because, well he was in charge so he should have known.

In fact MacArthur was in Tokyo and had, up to then, never even set foot in Korea. In fact, as we learn from a collection of essays on the Korean War edited by James Cotton and Ian Neary, this is easily explained.

There were incessant border incidents along the 38th Parallel, and while Ellman quotes a report predicting imminent war shortly before it happened, he omits numerous other reports saying the exact same thing over the previous year. In other words, MacArthur was being told repeatedly that North Korea was about to invade, and then it didn't invade.

MacArthur in fact drew attention to this on the very report that Ellman quotes. MacArthur forwarded the information to Washington and included that he had received several similar reports that had led to nothing, and saw no reason why this one would result in invasion.

This was the crux of Wohlstetter's whole book. Such things seem obvious in retrospect but are impossible to decipher at the time. It's cherry-picking selective evidence while ignoring the wider context.

So Ellman says that everyone everywhere was taken by surprise in Korea but MacArthur is still a big dummy for it because he was geographically closer to Korea than....who? KMAG was taken by surprise too and they were on the 38th Parallel.

Ellman might have gained some insight regarding this when he noted that Mao deduced the American strategy. Noting the arrival of the Marines in Japan, and the collection of shipping, Mao correctly concluded that MacArthur was going to attempt an amphibious operation. Ellman claims that Mao even correctly guessed that the target would be Inchon.

Yet, Ellman says, the North Koreans were still taken by surprise. Interesting, isn't it? That despite the 'obvious' indication, the North Koreans still didn't see it coming. Ellman was getting close to figuring it out at this point. The reason, of course, was that Mao's information was just one among many possibilities considered.

At this point I might draw the reader's attention to the fact that surprise was achieved repeatedly throughout the history of warfare, and especially in places where it wasn't supposed to happen. An interesting example is the Bulgarian Third Army crossing the Strandzha at Kirk Kilisse. This reminiscent of the German use of the Ardennes in 1940, and in the Japanese use of Mount Natib in Bataan.

Inchon is much the same story, but all of them also involved real attacks in other quarters. I would, as an aside, note that Ellman observed the similarities between the Japanese breaking MacArthur's front at Bataan and the Chinese doing it in Korea, using mountains.

Azar Gat wrote a paper entitled 'Strategic Surprise Always?' in which he concluded strategic surprise succeeded every single time it was attempted in the twentieth century. When we bear this in mind we gain some perspective on MacArthur. He was far from being uniquely credulous and far from being the only one deceived and surprised on the outbreak of war.

The Soviets were surprised too. The Americans at Pearl Harbor were surprised. The Yugoslavs and Greeks were surprised. The Germans were successfully deceived multiple times throughout the Second World War, in just one instance we can cite the Normandy landing.

We cannot, therefore, contend that MacArthur was uniquely stupid. Are we to say then that every commander was stupid? Rommel himself was deceived by Bertram, is he a bad commander?

Next we'll deal with the argument made about Ultra, using Edward Drea as his basis. Drea indeed writes that MacArthur benefited from Ultra intelligence and often knew what he was up against. This, in Ellman's view, diminishes MacArthur's genius. And it does, as Drea wrote it reduces the mystique of MacArthur. But it does not eliminate it.

The fact is that even when the course is clear in war it still takes enormous moral courage to take it. Ellman himself writes that Hollandia was MacArthur's finest moment, moving outside of aircover and taking a risk that he might not be able to establish security quickly. This is still brazen and audacious even with Ultra.

Inchon was the same way. Ellman professes to be confused by MacArthur's choice of landing, but this was explained in depth by Weintraub and Bevin Alexander. Ellman suggests that a landing at Kunsan would have been safer and as decisive, which was the suggestion of men like Omar Bradley. But Weintraub and Alexander point out that this was emphatically not the case. That only Inchon allowed for a decisive victory and this is what MacArthur said too. Perhaps Ellman thinks that because MacArthur is supposedly a pathological liar that everything he ever said was incorrect and untrue.

The fact is that MacArthur was a general who had a strong sense of the flexibility provided by seapower and amphibious capability, and was brave enough to boldly employ it in daring operations that more cautious and traditional commanders like Bradley could not conceive of. If Bradley was in command in New Guinea and received Ultra intelligence on Hollandia would he have done as MacArthur did? I doubt it.

Here too, we might note that Eisenhower had Ultra too, and was still taken by surprise at the Bulge. The Germans massed an army under the nose of the Americans, in the very same place the French had been taken by surprise in 1940, and none of the American commanders in Europe saw it. It is important to broaden the context.

Now, those are the criticisms, I would like to note the points I found in the book's favor.

To be sure MacArthur was an egotist, and he was certainly not as great of a general as he liked to appear. Ellman is on solid ground when he accuses MacArthur of dereliction of duty in lax training for the forces under his command in both the Philippines and Japan.

While I do not think it's too much of a mark against him that he was taken by surprise, he could have been much better prepared than he was. In his defense I would point out the unreliability of the Filipino and ROK forces. Though regarding the latter Ellman makes a strange defense saying that they could probably have reconstituted themselves without the sacrifice of the 24th Division at Taejon.

If the ROK Army really did rebuild itself after Taejon, how can we determine whether the American stand at Taejon was instrumental in this? It could have inspired them, it could have bought them time. It might not have, but simply saying that Taejon was irrelevant is unsatisfactory. Truman himself agreed that MacArthur's unconventional decision to delay the Japanese with piecemeal forces was correct. Though I might grant Ellman's argument that Pusan might have been held either way.

Ellman is arguing from a strong position when he says that MacArthur ought to have made sure the bombers were moved to Del Monte and his lame excuse of 'I never knew why they weren't' won't suffice. It was his job to look into it, and he did not.

MacArthur's decision to go against War Plan Orange and attempt to defend Luzon at the beaches was a fiasco and hardly credible to the general. And his worse moment was after the initial Chinese attack he decided to continue with his clumsy advance on both Korean coasts, with no logistical support, and Ellman makes an interesting case that the Second Chinese Offensive might be the worst defeat in American history.

I would qualify that, however. Ellman notes that MacArthur's forces were mostly non-Americans in both Korea and the Philippines, and notes that both native auxiliaries were poorly trained and equipped, yet expects MacArthur to have done miracles with them. This was the same issue plaguing the British in Malaya and we could draw some interesting comparisons here between Wavell and MacArthur.

But above all, the most important insight I got from this book was the suggestion that the SWPA was unnecessary and strategically questionable. I've always accepted the conventional wisdom that Japan's decision to launch operations like FS and MO to sever communications between Australia and the US posed such a significant threat that the US deviated from its German First Strategy to counterattack at Guadalcanal.

The underlying presumption here is that Japan severing communications between the US and Australia would have been a lethal blow against the Allied position in the Pacific. But would it have been?

Ellman makes a strong case that Nimitz's Central Pacific drive did not need bases in Australia or New Guinea. Japan fatally miscalculated in the war when she assumed that the United States would need to launch amphibious assaults on tiny well-defended islands (which Pete Ellis proposed restructuring the Marines for), in order to secure extant naval bases.

In fact because of the Service Squadrons and the Seabees, the US could build mobile advanced bases anywhere with a suitable harbor. This allowed Nimitz to island-hop past fortified positions, which MacArthur similarly did with leap-frogging and which he bizarrely contrasted with island-hopping (a description in this work).

This leads Ellman to the suggestion that MacArthur's whole area of operations was unnecessary for Allied victory. He argues that MacArthur benefited from commanding Australians and being in command of the only Allied forces then in contact with the Japanese. Stopping them in the Solomons and Port Moresby might have been strategically sound, if not exactly essential, but thereafter the Americans would have been better off maintain a concentrated drive in the Central Pacific and MacArthur's whole campaign to retake New Guinea and the Philippines could have been a waste of time. It's a radical and fascinating suggestion that has caused a lot of thinking on my part.

Ellman deals with the debate over Causeway, which he seems to favor over Luzon. But Nimitz himself was not sold on Causeway and Ellman notes that this seriously undermined King's support for it.

Leyte is also not credible to MacArthur. Ellman here makes a curious argument that the Japanese would have been defeated more heavily than they were if they came upon the transports as many feared, and says that MacArthur ought to have known Leyte was unsuitable for airbases. Steven Ross wrote that someone should have known, but I would have to look to see if someone actually warned MacArthur. Surely requiring the Third Fleet to provide air support in the absence of airbases on Leyte delayed Nimitz and obviated the point of Leyte.

Two more very important insights are provided by Ellman in noting that MacArthur's insubordination did not begin in Korea. As early as the Bonus Army MacArthur was already disobeying orders and this was to be a frequent occurrence throughout his military career. Ellman does a great service in drawing attention to all of the times MacArthur went contrary to the President's designs and noting that his actions in Korea were merely a culmination of this habit.

Secondly, Ellman strongly implies that MacArthur was humored as commander of SWPA in order to remove him as a Presidential rival for Roosevelt. I feel like this argument can be overstated, Ellman sometimes seems to suggest that the whole reason for MacArthur's command was simply to keep him out of the United States, but this seems to be veering towards a conspiracy theory.

He suggests that MacArthur was given such a long tenure in Japan for the same reasons, noting that his counterparts in Germany did not act as long-term viceroys. He wonders why MacArthur is remembered so fondly in Japan while men like Lucius Clay are not remembered in Germany, which could simply be because MacArthur was in Japan a lot longer.

Were Roosevelt and Truman really so terrified of MacArthur running against them that they would go to any lengths to keep him outside of the United States? Was MacArthur's original appointment to the Philippines a ploy to get him away from the voters? Like much else in this book, it leaves much food for thought.

A special bonus for me personally was the unexpected mention of Franco and Spain, who MacArthur was corresponding with about his plans to expand the war against China. This is a big bomb proving MacArthur's willful disobedience if it's true.

Some of the arguments in this book I felt were not as strong as they were presented, but the book made me look at MacArthur from new angles and convinced me of a number of instances where he was downright wrong. Most egregiously in regards to the Chinese Second Offensive.

But for all that I am not convinced that MacArthur was a poor commander. He was audacious and could take big risk for big payoffs. Not many commanders can do this even with accurate intelligence. Inchon is a case in point, anybody but MacArthur would have gone with a more cautious and limited operation, and would not have succeeded to the same extent.

[Ron Baumer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intriguing look at the life and times of General Douglas MacArthur. The author has taken the position of reviewing his actions in both WW2 as well as Korea to offer the reader a different view of the man many considered America's greatest hero during the second world war. The author has provided a detailed history and review of the various actions and errors committed by MacArthur. The story is a good foil against the books that chose to overlook the errors and provide a one-sided look into his life. A tremendous read.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

[David Talcott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve often been annoyed that so many historians gloss over MacArthur’s errors, defeats and insubordination but then kinda, sorta forget these facts and declare him to be a ‘great’ general. Finally, here is a book that uses MacArthur’s own words and deeds to make the case that he was at best a mediocre military leader. Highly recommended for those interested in World War II history.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an ARC in return for my unbiased opinion.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back when I was in college in the early 60s my favorite history professor enjoyed derisively referring to MacArthur as “Dugout Doug”. He never fully explained why. After reading this book I think I understand why many experts consider him the worst general since McLellan. MacArthur was an egotistical liar and pedophile who had a pattern of disobeying orders from superiors, even the POTUS. His subordinates detested him. He also was popular and had political ambitions which made superiors wary of crossing him and was the reason Roosevelt didn’t fire him. In the Korean War he wanted to drop 30-50 tactical atomic bombs on China even if it meant WWIII. Truman finally had had enough and fired the megalomaniac before he could start another world war. MacArthur is definitely not worthy of his fame. I still can’t get over the fact that when he was 50 in Manila he kept a 16 year old Filipino girl as his mistress. Sick.

[Urey Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Douglas MacArthur is one of those historical figures whose mythology has always exceeded his reality. He was courageous, intelligent, capable, articulate and personable – but these virtues were ultimately subordinated in service of his vanity, his ego and his overweening need to promote himself to the point of pompous vainglory, to the detriment of the greater need. MacArthur served ably, bravely and with distinction in WWI. During the inter-war years, he also served ably and with distinction as Superintendent of West Point, modernizing the curriculum and the culture in ways that needed to be done. He was swiftly promoted to Chief of Staff of the Army, youngest in history, I believe – in hindsight, perhaps too swiftly. MacArthur began to view himself as infallible, and unbeholden to any higher authority. During the veterans’ Bonus March on Washington he ignored direct orders from President Hoover (his constitutionally designated Commander-in-Chief, I remind) and initiated direct conflict with the veterans, with unnecessary, disastrous and deplorable results. Hoover did nothing in response to MacArthur’s insubordination, setting the pattern that would continue throughout WWII and Korea until Truman finally had enough and relieved him... notably, though, only after a series of MacArthur actions in defiance of policy and direction.

MacArthur subordinated national policy to his personal agenda. He pursued a strategy focused on regaining the Philippines – his grandstanding promise to return. He insisted on retaking Manila, with catastrophic results, as he later insisted on retaking Seoul – unnecessary to the UN mission and goals in Korea. He had done nothing to prepare for war – in the onset of WWII, or Korea – and in retrospect touted his brilliance doping so. The casualties and losses, and defeats, were proportionately greater than they needed to be. When his superb combat commanders succeeded, he took credit – describing himself at the front lines, when in fact he seldom visited the front or his troops... never after he resumed luxurious residence in Manila; twice during Korea – and then only day trips from Tokyo. He declared campaigns over early on when casualties were relatively low – and minimized or ignored the subsequent weeks, or months, of hard bloody fighting as merely “mopping up”. And when problems or defeats or bad things occurred attributable to his decisions – he always blamed others... his superiors, his troops, his support or other services. He rewrote history to obscure or simply change his decisions or actions to reflect what happened, extolling his brilliance and acumen. He was never wrong.

It is a fascinating lesson in the perils of egotistical self-promotion, worsened by the inability or indisposition of those who knew better and could have stopped it or changed it. That in many ways is a bigger disillusionment – the lack of fortitude and lack of commitment to the integrity and obligations of their positions and their oaths. Hoover did nothing in response to the defiance of his command authority. FDR did nothing ... even rewarding him with the Medal of Honor solely to assuage his ego and keep him out of politics (it didn’t work – MacArthur is the only active duty officer ever to pursue political ambitions while on duty in a combat zone). Marshall walked on egg shells around him. Truman raged over his persistent insubordination – until finally the last straw pushed him to relieve him, notably without any negative remarks or disciplinary action.

Sadly, this is nothing new in human affairs. This book is an exhaustively researched, superbly encapsulated examination of MacArthur’s record and reputation limited to his service in WWII and Korea. That he was a mediocre military commander, at best, becomes apparent. That his was a seriously flawed and megalomaniac personality is also clear. Ellman has done a superb job of analyzing, assessing and putting into context the MacArthur record, decisively dispelling and repudiating the MacArthur mythology that characterizes so many prior histories and evaluations of the man. It’s a great read. There are no neutral perspectives regarding MacArthur, and as Ellman himself states, this book will reinforce MacArthur critics; and it will give MacArthur enthusiasts information enough to rethink their sentiments. He has certainly done that.

Ellman, quoting Major General Enoch Crowder (1859-1923) speaking of the MacArthurs – father and son – “Arthur MacArthur was the most flamboyantly egotistical man I had ever seen, until I met his son.”

[Leroy Roscoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sensational damaging claims made but unsupported by the author of a sexual relationship with a minor leading to statements made by others that MacArthur was a pedophile and research seemingly limited to MacArthur detractors and/or secondary sources.

I get the impression this is a calculated attempt to gain recognition and sales targeting a popular figure and a hero to many from a time just long enough ago with few living witnesses.

Ms. Cooper is only mentioned briefly on pages 13-14 and there is no number linking or referencing any information about her in the Notes section of the book. Her birth date could have been January 15 1909 or 1912 or 1914 when searched which means she could have been 18 or even 21 years old when she met MacArthur and not a minor. Without any reference or proof provided by the author, Ms. Coopers age comes into question as are any claims of pedophilia on the part of MacArthur. MacArthur was also divorced when he met Ms. Cooper. Such claims are devastating and really should be evidenced before being made. The lack of which calls into question the conclusions made by the author.

After looking through the Notes and Selected Bibliography the book seems to lean heavily on other books written by some who may not have been particularly fond of MacArthur. Could they've been cherry picked to support the author's thesis? The title's similar to "Nixon Reconsidered" which gives a more balanced view of Nixon but has a lower review rating as it's somehow "bad" to "like" Nixon. Is it now "bad" to "like" MacArthur? It seems that as time passes we're left to rely on secondary or subjective sources, does that create a "fictional" view of history that "supports" potentially sensational works? Better to view events by the standards and evidence from that time and not to enrich "revisionists".

[Donald Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book by the author’s brevity and, of course, the subject matter. My understanding of MacArthur was rudimentary but included both positive and negative impressions with the preponderance being favorable. Ellman’s case to the negative is well supported though I take issue with two of his ten point summary in the Conclusion. Point 4 regarding Japanese atrocities being directly precipitated by MacArthur’s decisions seems overstated. Granted the pressure placed on Japanese forces by the invasion of Luzon creating conditions which led to their crimes can be made; but to think their crimes would not have happened at some point regardless of MacArthur’s decision to invade makes little sense in light of the Japanese army’s behavior prior to and during the war.

Point 5 about the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands at Kyushu suggesting that McArthur was irredeemably wrong is in doubt. I certainly would concur with Admirals King and Nimitz in that far fewer American lives would have been lost with a blockade. However, would their strategy have decisively won the war?

Regardless of my nitpicking here I commend the book to those interested in a more complete portrait of MacArthur and a picture of the consequential stakes of poor judgment with its high cost in human life.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I consider MacArthur, Patton and Montgomery (with Mark Clark being a close 4th) to be the top egos of WWII. When you add his behavior in the Korean War, that cements his position, IMO. Don't get me wrong, a military leader needs a strong ego, but when that ego leads to major mistakes and men are killed as a result, then it's time to put him out for retirement. (Think George B. McClellan.)

Unfortunately, sometimes in war other considerations take precedence. The debacle in the Philippines was just the first step in the creation of the MacArthur 'legend'. He should have been out of power, but between his own propaganda and the 'need' for a rallying figure, he stayed in for years, even finishing the war as the 'big man' in Japan itself.

His 'battles' with Truman and civilian control are well-known. Years of getting his own way had led him to believe he could continue to do so. Fortunately, he was wrong. This book points out where his ego led him astray and how this country suffered for it. Sadly, extreme ego didn't die with MacArthur. In fact, its recent resurgence has shown just how dangerous it can be.

[Christian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The ratings here are shocking. This isn’t just a bad book: it’s terrible. There is nothing in it that isn’t covered and covered with substantially more nuance or context in many other books, including the ones that err on the side of disliking MacArthur or who thought he was more of a liability. This does not advance scholarship and is a total failure of analysis when it comes to assessing MacArthur’s achievements, his massive contributions at many levels to the United States, and his legacy. Not to say he was perfect or necessarily even great. But give me a break.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book this guy is a bad ass.first time read this author if you liked war books you need to read this book.

[Andy Tuite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing we won the war with such a leader. MacArthur and Robert E Lee dubious leaders

[Dylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I am with the author, MacArthur is the worst of what American officership has to offer. However, this book really did not resonate with me.