In a 2017 survey, presidential historians ranked Dwight D. Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, behind the perennial top four: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Teddy Roosevelt. Historian William Hitchcock shows that this high ranking is justified. Eisenhower’s accomplishments were enormous, and loom ever larger from the vantage point of our own tumultuous times.
A former general, Ike kept the peace: he ended the Korean War, avoided a war in Vietnam, adroitly managed a potential confrontation with China, and soothed relations with the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death. He guided the Republican Party to embrace central aspects of the New Deal like Social Security. He thwarted the demagoguery of McCarthy and he advanced the agenda of civil rights for African Americans. As part of his strategy to wage, and win, the Cold War, Eisenhower expanded American military power, built a fearsome nuclear arsenal and launched the space race. In his famous Farewell Address, he acknowledged that Americans needed such weapons in order to keep global peace—but he also admonished his citizens to remain alert to the potentially harmful influence of the “military-industrial complex.”
From 1953 to 1961, no one dominated the world stage as did President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Age of Eisenhower is the definitive account of this presidency, drawing extensively on declassified material from the Eisenhower Library, the CIA and Defense Department, and troves of unpublished documents. In his masterful account, Hitchcock shows how Ike shaped modern America, and he astutely assesses Eisenhower’s close confidants, from Attorney General Brownell to Secretary of State Dulles. The result is an eye-opening reevaluation that explains why this “do-nothing” president is rightly regarded as one of the best leaders our country has ever had.
Review "Outstanding." (Michael O'Donnell The Atlantic)
“Like the supposedly conformist and complacent 1950s, too long eclipsed by the drama and turbulence of the 1960s, so has Dwight Eisenhower too long been dismissed as a distracted codger compared with the youthful president who succeeded him, John F. Kennedy. Now William I. Hitchcock's trenchant and compelling book convincingly redresses the balance. He reminds us of the gravity of the issues at stake in the 1950s—including increasingly violent clashes over civil rights and the prospect of nuclear Armageddon—and persuasively portrays Eisenhower as an engaged and thoughtful leader who deeply shaped the nation's destiny for decades to come.” (David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus, Stanford University, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Freedom From Fear)
"A splendid biography." (Joseph C. Goulden The Washington Times)
“William Hitchcock has given us an absorbing account of an era that looms large not only in the long history of the West but in our time. Dwight Eisenhower helped create a strong, dynamic, and in many ways enviable America. There were flaws, yes, and dreams deferred—but taken all in all, Ike’s achievements on the battlefield and in the public square of peacetime are towering, and we live still in their long shadow.” (Jon Meacham, author of DESTINY AND POWER: The American Odyssey of George H.W. Bush and AMERICAN LION)
