Stephen E. Ambrose draws upon extensive sources, an unprecedented degree of scholarship, and numerous interviews with Dwight D. Eisenhower himself to offer the fullest, richest, and most objective rendering yet of the soldier who became president.

Eisenhower: The President, the second and concluding volume of Stephen Ambrose's brilliant biography, is the first assessment of a postwar President based on access to the entire record. It covers a wide range of subjects, including Eisenhower's rejection of the near-unanimous advice he received as President to use atomic weapons; his thinking on defense policy and the Cold War; his handling of a multitude of foreign-affairs crises; his attitudes and actions on civil rights; his views on Joseph McCarthy and on communism. Also illuminated are Eisenhower's relations with Nixon, Truman, Khrushchev, de Gaulle, and other world leaders. Ambrose provides us with an extraordinary portrait—fairminded and enormously well-informed—of the man, both decent and complex, who is increasingly regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest Presidents.

About The Author

Photo Credit:

Stephen E. Ambrose

Stephen E. Ambrose was a renowned historian and acclaimed author of more than thirty books. Among his New York Times bestsellers are Nothing Like It in the World, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, D-Day - June 6, 1944, and Undaunted Courage. Dr. Ambrose was a retired Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans and a contributing editor for the Quarterly Journal of Military History.

Product Details

Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 18, 2014)
Length: 608 pages
ISBN13: 9781476745879

Raves and Reviews

Naomi Bliven The New Yorker A review can barely suggest the riches of this biography, its readability, and its discrimination in evoking the recent past. It offers the beguiling mixture of nostalgia and illumination we find in old newsreels, along with an abundance of themes for reflection.

Robert J. Donovan The New York Times Book Review, front page Stephen E. Ambrose's Eisenhower is the best book to date on its subject...it is also the most comprehensive....A scholarly determination to be fair permeates the book....Of Eisenhower's high rank on the list of Presidents there can be little doubt.

General William Westmoreland A rich and exciting book about Eisenhower in a civilian role. His grasp of military and foreign affairs and his courage to make timely and bold decisions are hallmarks of the excellent account of a soldier turned statesman and politician.

Chicago Tribune Bookworld Stephen Ambrose's important biography...argues that in foreign affairs Eisenhower was "undoubtedly the best-prepared man ever elected to the Presidency." And he proved it with his management of crises -- Dien Bien Phu, Quemoy and Matsu (where he resisted appeals to use tactical atomic weapons against the Chinese), Suez, the Hungarian revolt, Berlin, Sputnik, the U-2 incident....Ambrose has given us a splendid biography of a great and good man.