Douglas MacArthur

Offers a portrait of the American general, focusing on his two decades in the Far East, and an analysis of American foreign policy in Asia. In an army which eschewed flamboyance, General Douglas MacArthur possessed a unique flair. With his chiseled face, corn-cob pipe, and a voice which "could trumpet and drum," he looked the part of a "heaven born general." He was arguably the best-known and most popular American military leader of the 20th century, and at least one observer—General George E. Stratemeyer, MacArthur's top air officer in Japan—thought him "the greatest man in history." Yet the men who served in the trenches of Bataan sneeringly called him "Dugout Doug," FDR privately termed MacArthur's defense of Corregidor "criminal," and Truman called his vaunted "return" to the Philippines "a fiasco." In this eye-opening book, historian Michael Schaller offers an intimately detailed portrait of MacArthur, particularly the General's two decades in the Far East, demythologizing this "American Caesar" and providing an insightful analysis of American foreign policy in Asia during those years.^ Schaller's is far from a flattering portrait. He finds, for instance, that MacArthur's mili