About the Author

Jean Edward Smith is the author of the highly acclaimed "FDR, "winner of the 2008 Francis Parkman Prize; "Grant, "a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist; "John Marshall: Definer of a Nation; "and "Lucius D. Clay: An American Life." A member of the faculty at the University of Toronto for thirty-five years, and at Marshall University for twelve, he is currently a senior scholar in the history department at Columbia.

Reviews

"Magisterial."--"The New York Times"
"[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhower's] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.""--The Washington Post"
"Highly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhower's] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements."--"The""Wall Street Journal"
"Always engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D'Este, this is the best."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)
"No one has written so heroic a biography [on Eisenhower] as this year's "Eisenhower in War and Peace" [by] Jean Edward Smith."--"The National Interest"
"Dwight Eisenhower, who was more cunning than he allowed his adversaries to know, understood the advantage of being underestimated. Jean Edward Smith demonstrates precisely how successful this stratagem was. Smith, America's greatest living biographer, shows why, now more than ever, Americans should like Ike."--George F. Will

"Magisterial."--"The New York Times"

"[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhower's] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.""--The Washington Post"

"Highly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhower's] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements."--"The""Wall Street Journal"

"Always engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D'Este, this is the best."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)

"No one has written so heroic a biography [on Eisenhower] as this year's "Eisenhower in War and Peace" [by] Jean Edward Smith."--"The National Interest"

"Dwight Eisenhower, who was more cunning than he allowed his adversaries to know, understood the advantage of being underestimated. Jean Edward Smith demonstrates precisely how successful this stratagem was. Smith, America's greatest living biographer, shows why, now more than ever, Americans should like Ike."--George F. Will

Advance praise for "Eisenhower in War and Peace"

"Dwight Eisenhower, who was more cunning than he allowed his adversaries to know, understood the advantage of being underestimated. Jean Edward Smith refutes this durable misunderstanding. Smith, America's greatest living biographer, demonstrates why, now more than ever, Americans should like Ike."
--George F. Will

"Jean Smith, indubitably America's most distinguished biographer, has now produced the classic life of Dwight Eisenhower. Ike, who rose from an anti-military and non-elite background, resides in the ranks of the greatest war heroes of history, not to speak of his place as a leader of post-Second World War peace. Here he comes alive on every page--the beneficiary of the exhausting fresh research this handsomely written book is based upon. When the General died, Mamie, his lifelong wife, allowed that she never fully knew her famous husband. No reader of Smith's work will render the same complaint."
--Henry F. Graff, Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University

"Always engrossing . . . Smith describes a man who commanded the largest coalition army in history without grandiloquent posturing . . . leaving office more popular than any successor. . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D'Este, this is the best."
--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)

Praise for Jean Edward Smith's "FDR"
"A model presidential biography . . . Now, at last, we have the biography that is right for the man.""--The Washington Post Book World"
"Remarkable . . . the Roosevelt who emerges here--neither a stranger nor a painted icon--is flawed and magnificent."--"The New Yorker"
""FDR" will secure Smith's standing as today's foremost biographer of formidable figures in American history. While presenting a fascinating picture of the private side of a public man, he illuminates how FDR's complex and steely character reflected--and shaped--his era, and ours."--George F. Will
"[Smith] has dug more deeply into the Roosevelt collection of books and documents than all of his predecessors. The result is a picture of the thirty-second president richer in detail and explanation than any other work. . . . Instructive and absorbing."--Henry F. Graff
"A terrific one-volume, comprehensive look at an extraordinary life."--"USA Today"

Presidential biographer Smith presents an interesting and comprehensive account of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 34th President is portrayed as a steady and decisive leader, particularly during the World War II era. Ike is also depicted as a peacekeeper and a key figure in establishing the United States as a world power. Smith's narrative is compelling and accessible to nonhistory buffs. VERDICT Well performed by narrator Paul Hecht, Smith's writing reads more like a story than a standard history textbook. This work will be especially appealing to readers enamored of this time period in U.S. history and those interested in the lives and legacies of Presidents such as Truman, FDR, and Teddy Roosevelt. ["Smith gives a riveting account of one of the 20th century's most important leaders," read the review of the New York Times best-selling Random hc, LJ 12/11.-Ed.]-Nicole A. Cooke, Montclair State Univ. Lib., NJ (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.