Review: Eisenhower in War and Peace

Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is where my presidential biography journey will end. It is a fitting one, since this is a president I knew little to nothing about. 

It is refreshing to have a biographer who is straightforward about when the subject was in the wrong. All too often I feel like they make excuses for the person they are writing about. 

Interesting how, having experienced war as a general, Eisenhower was dead against starting new wars, entering Indochina, using the atomic bomb with china and Vietnam (as he was advised to do), because he was against these. But then let himself get manipulated into subverting democracy and have the CIA carry out coups in Iran and Guatemala.

I feel like the second presidential term and later years were rushed through, with little to no detail. 

But all in all a great biography of a very interesting man, going through a pivotal time in United States history. Between the Korean war, desegregation, the cold war, in addition to Eisenhower's accomplishments during WWII, a lot of ground is covered here. 

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Review: Truman

Truman by David McCullough
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The background on Missouri during the John Brown / Jim Crow era was fascinating and deeply disturbing. 

I hadn't realized how many things happened during Truman's presidency:

The end of World War II, including the dropping of the atomic bombs

The creation of Israel

The Truman doctrine

The Marshall Plan

The Berlin Airlift

The Civil Rights Commission (the first one ever) was set up

The Truman balcony

And apparently his election to a second term was the biggest upset in presidential history

The Korean war started

The Cold War started

NATO was established

General Macarthur's firing

I was curious about this biography for several reasons. First of all, I knew that the switch of Southern Democrats to Republicanism occurred during Truman, but I wasn't really sure why. Also, I know President Biden keeps a bust of Truman in his office. This biography answered the first question, but I'm not sure it answers the second. The closest analogy I can find is that Truman had to deal with WWII when entering into office, while Biden has COVID. 

Truman was definitely a unique president. He was truthful and naive almost to a fault, but in a good way, and was convinced the truth would win out in the end. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 

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Review: The Guest

The Guest by Hwang Sok-yong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is much heavier than the other books I've read by this author (Familiar Things and At Dusk). It is also fundamentally different, dealing quite literally with the ghosts of the past. Two brothers, born in North Korea before the war, who escaped, and then became ministers in the United States. One of the brothers passes away a few days before the younger one goes back to visit North Korea. 

None of it is gratuitous, but there is plenty of horror and murder. More specifically, many things that were blamed on the Americans and Japanese, turn out not to have been them at all, but to have been North Koreans against other North Koreans; quite literally neighbor against neighbor and families turning on each other. 

Apparently the author caught quite a bit of flack for this novel. 

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