MacArthur at War
World War II in the Pacific
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Narrated by:
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David Baker
About this listen
The definitive account of General Douglas MacArthur's rise during World War II, from the author of the best seller The Admirals.
World War II changed the course of history. Douglas MacArthur changed the course of World War II. Macarthur at War goes deeper into this transformative period of his life than previous biographies, drilling into the military strategy that Walter R. Borneman is so skilled at conveying and exploring how personality and ego translate into military successes and failures.
Architect of stunning triumphs and inexplicable defeats, General MacArthur is the most intriguing military leader of the 20th century. There was never any middle ground with MacArthur. This in-depth study of the most critical period of his career shows how MacArthur's influence spread far beyond the war-torn Pacific.
©2016 Walter R. Borneman (P)2016 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Finalist, Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History, 2017
"A first-rate account of its subject and an excellent history of the less-known half of the American experience in the Pacific."—Robert Messenger, Wall Street Journal
"More than any other book I have read, MacArthur at War gives readers a unique portrait of the great general with his almost incredible combination of admirable and detestable qualities. Nearly as important are the insights into unflappable General George C. Marshall, who managed MacArthur's gifts and flaws to wrest victory from near defeat in a global war."—Thomas Fleming, author of The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II
"The special quality of MacArthur at War is its combination of research in relevant literature and archives with a fairness of presentation and judgment often missing when MacArthur is the subject."—Gerhard L. Weinberg, History Book Club
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Performance
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Virtually all Americans above a certain age hold strong opinions about Douglas MacArthur. They either worship him or despise him. Now, in this superb book, one of our most outstanding writers, after a meticulous three-year examination of the record, presents his startling insights about the man. The narrative is gripping, because the general's life was fascinating. It is moving, because he was a man of vision. It ends, finally, in tragedy, because his character, though majestic, was tragically flawed.
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A Great American
- By Charlotte A. Hu on 05-19-13
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Roosevelt's Centurions
- FDR and the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II
- By: Joseph E. Persico
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 24 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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All American presidents are commanders in chief by law. Few perform as such in practice. In Roosevelt’s Centurions, distinguished historian Joseph E. Persico reveals how, during World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt seized the levers of wartime power like no president since Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Declaring himself "Dr. Win-the-War", FDR assumed the role of strategist in chief, and, though surrounded by star-studded generals and admirals, he made clear who was running the war. FDR was a hands-on war leader, involving himself in everything from choosing bomber targets to planning naval convoys to the design of landing craft.
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Superficial description of World War II
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-23-13
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The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume I: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
- By: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Winston Churchill is perhaps the most important political figure of the 20th century. His great oratory and leadership during the Second World War were only part of his huge breadth of experience and achievement. Studying his life is a fascinating way to imbibe the history of his era and gain insight into key events that have shaped our time.
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Superb - Review of Both Volume I & Volume II
- By Wolfpacker on 01-23-09
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Neptune
- The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings
- By: Craig L. Symonds
- Narrated by: Craig L. Symonds
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventy years ago, more than 6000 Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a 50-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy.
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The Whys of D-Day
- By Mike From Mesa on 02-09-15
By: Craig L. Symonds
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Marshall and His Generals
- U.S. Army Commanders in World War II
- By: Stephen R. Taaffe
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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General George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the US Army during World War II, faced the daunting task not only of overseeing two theaters of a global conflict but also of selecting the best generals to carry out American grand strategy. Marshall and His Generals is the first and only book to focus entirely on that selection process and the performances, both stellar and disappointing, that followed from it. Stephen Taaffe explores how and why Marshall selected the Army's commanders.
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Marshall's Black Book
- By Jean on 12-18-17
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The Mantle of Command
- FDR at War, 1941–1942
- By: Nigel Hamilton
- Narrated by: Brad Sanders
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on years of archival research and interviews with the last surviving aides and Roosevelt family members, Nigel Hamilton offers a definitive account of FDR’s masterful - and underappreciated - command of the Allied war effort. Hamilton takes listeners inside FDR’s White House Oval Study - his personal command center - and into the meetings where he battled with Churchill about strategy and tactics and overrode the near mutinies of his own generals and secretary of war.
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Great Book, Terrible Narration
- By Ross Mackey on 04-11-22
By: Nigel Hamilton
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Rising Sun Victorious
- Alternate Histories of the Pacific War
- By: Peter G. Tsouras
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In war, victory can be held hostage to seemingly insignificant incidents - chance events, opportunities seized or cast aside - that can derail the most brilliant military strategies and change the course of history. What if the Japanese had conquered India and driven out the British? What if the strategic link between the United States and Australia had been severed? What if Vice Admiral Nagumo had launched a third attack on Pearl Harbor? What if the US Navy's gamble at Midway had backfired?
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victorious
- By Amazon Customer on 05-17-16
By: Peter G. Tsouras
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Patton, Montgomery, Rommel
- Masters of War
- By: Terry Brighton
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the Second World War, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany each produced one land-force commander who stood out from the rest: George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel. All were arrogant, publicity seeking, and personally flawed, yet each possessed a genius for command and an unrivaled enthusiasm for combat.
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Excellent ... Patton, Montgomery, Rommel
- By John VandenBrook on 01-10-10
By: Terry Brighton
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Hell to Pay
- Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947
- By: D. M. Giangreco
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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U.S. planning for the invasion and military occupation of Imperial Japan began two years before the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hell to Pay brings to light the political and military ramifications of the enormous casualties and loss of material projected by both sides in the climatic struggle to bring the Pacific War to a conclusion through a brutal series of battles on Japanese soil.
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This is a good piece of history.
- By David on 08-09-14
By: D. M. Giangreco
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Eisenhower in War and Peace
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 28 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Author of the best-seller FDR, Jean Edward Smith is a master of the presidential biography. Setting his sights on Dwight D. Eisenhower, Smith delivers a rich account of Eisenhower’s life using previously untapped primary sources. From the military service in WWII that launched his career to the shrewd political decisions that kept America out of wars with the Soviet Union and China, Smith reveals a man who never faltered in his dedication to serving America, whether in times of war or peace.
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Good, although biased, biography
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-15-12
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The Rise of Germany, 1939-1941
- The War in The West, Volume 1
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 27 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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For seven decades, our understanding of World War II has been shaped by a standard narrative built on conventional wisdom, propaganda, the dramatic but narrow experiences of soldiers on the ground, and an early generation of historians. For his new history, James Holland has spent over 12 years unearthing new research, recording original testimony, and visiting battlefields and archives that have never before been so accessible.
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Good Book painfully read
- By richard on 01-21-16
By: James Holland
What listeners say about MacArthur at War
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- Kym
- 05-07-21
A Balanced View
For me, this author brings together the many disparate views, opinions, hearsay and facts that cloak this enigmatic character and gives a beautifully balanced narrative supported by a thoughtful and measured reading.
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- JAMES RHOADS
- 02-09-23
Excellent book about a complicated man
The book was excellent. MacArthur was a very complicated man. The book goes into his personality and his relationships with other high ranking officers. He was courageous but also had an ego that sometimes got in his way. But it is true that without him the war I the Pacific would have had a higher casualty count than it did.
I’ve heard it said by veterans of WWII that when it came to MacArthur, you either loved or hated him. He was a puzzle, but a great general.
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- Mike From Mesa
- 07-29-16
An interesting, but flawed, history
I believed when I first saw this book that it concerned itself with MacArthur’s military actions during World War II and I assumed it to be an analysis of how he fought his campaigns, the setbacks and successes and his military approach. While some of that is covered that is not what this book is primarily about. Instead this book spends a great deal of time discussing MacArthur’s failing - his tendency to exaggerate his problems, his imperiousness and mild paranoia and his grandstanding. Very little time is spent analyzing his military successes although considerable time is spent doing so with his failures.
Anyone who has read about Douglas MacArthur knows that he was a complex and varied person - part military strategist, part self promoter, part actor and always very ambitious, and the same can be said of other colorful military figures during World War II - George Patton and Bernard Montgomery foremost among them. Leadership is not always a simple and straight forward thing. George Patton was flamboyant and colorful, always acting for his troops and always a self promoter. Bernard Montgomery was equally colorful and believed himself to be the only one who really understood how to fight the war. Douglas MacArthur was no different, although perhaps he was a bit more successful at some of his failings than the others.
The book attempts to be a fair and balanced history of MacArthur during World War II, but fails in that attempt as the bias of the author is clear. The writing is full of phrases like “It was almost as if” when referring to MacArthur’s actions, his conversations are often called “tirades”, his responses to reports called “rants” and “lectures”. A great amount of time is spent on his failures, especially his failure to properly prepare for the initial Japanese attack against Luzon and the failure to properly stockpile food for the retreat into Bataan and Corregidor, and rightly so, but this is rarely balanced with a similar discussion concerning his successes. In addition the author seems to assume he knows what was going on in MacArthur’s mind during several incidents during the war and is inconsistent in his writing about Eddie Rickenbacker’s trip to see MacArthur during the war. This meeting, which the author refers to in two places in the book, is first qualified to make clear that no one knows, to this day, what message Rickenbacker was taking to MacArthur from Washington but, in the second reference the author assumes he does know and states so without even seeming to understand the inconsistency. He is clearly guessing, but treats his guesses as facts.
On the other hand the book seems to have been meticulously researched and small details that I have never seen in any other book concerning MacArthur’s actions are described so, for the first time, I was able to understand why food was not properly stockpiled in Corregidor before the retreat, why MacArthur’s planes were caught on the ground in the initial Japanese attack and why MacArthur wrongly assumed the number of Japanese soldiers he would have to fight upon his return to the Philippines. So, in some ways, the book provides a welcome addition to my knowledge of MacArthur’s actions during World War II, although some of what is written has to be taken with the understanding of what appears to be the author’s bias concerning his subject.
The book ends with MacArthur’s landing in Japan to take up his duties as Supreme Commander in Japan at the end of World War II and thus does not cover his work there, nor his leadership during the Korean War nor Truman’s dismissal of him, and the resulting firestorm, during that war.
The book is narrated by David Baker who does an excellent job. In rating this book I have tried to balance the clearly articulate writing and the new information against what I see as the author’s bias toward his subject. Had I been able to I would have given the book 3 1/2 stars but, since that is not possible, I have given it 4 stars, giving the author the benefit of the doubt. As a word of caution to readers I would mention that it is helpful to read William Manchester’s book “American Caesar” to get a different view of Douglas MacArthur and his role during World War II.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Valerie Virkler
- 05-22-20
Valuable and Inspiring
Borneman is thorough in his research and balanced in his conclusions. This is a well-written account of a complex, interesting man.
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- Ron P
- 01-17-18
Not quite 'The Admirals', but . . .
My first observation is that I've yet to find what feels to me like a fair evaluation of what and who MacArthur was. I've read American Caesar, Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior, Old Soldiers Never Die, and Supreme Commander. I've not committed as much time and energy to any other figure in history, not so much because I think he deserves it, but because I still am not sure what to make of him.
I picked up this book because I found Borneman's 'The Admirals' to be a compelling read of history. This was good, but it didn't achieve what that one did. What I liked about MacArthur At War is that most of the assertions are supported by historical citations in the book. For instance, you'll get any number of interpretations of MacArthur's meeting with FDR, Leahy, and Nimitz in Hawaii in various books, but Borneman, unlike most, includes observations and comments from those attending (as opposed to just MacArthur in the hagiographies, or MacArthur's critics in the hatchet jobs). Most of the observations and interpretations in the book are like this. It's not just an editorial -- there's history in here.
The biggest drawback to this book is that it stops with WWII. Obviously, it calls that out on the cover of the book -- it's not designed to be an assessment of his entire career. That said, what follows WWII (the Japanese occupation and Korea) are the most compelling elements of MacArthur's legacy; one a triumph, one a disgrace.
The other drawback is that it is, on balance, still pretty negative about MacArthur. Which is not to say that a negative assessment of a historical figure is a bad thing, but merely that those examples of unsupported assertions of fact in this book are almost uniformly negative. It's obvious that Borneman doesn't think much of MacArthur overall, but even worse, in his effort to be a balanced biographer, it sometimes feels like he's bending over backwards to give MacArthur credit in other areas -- which feels artificial.
All that said, I learned more about MacArthur the military man from this book than any other I've read. American Caesar is a more comprehensive picture of the man MacArthur might've been, but I think this is a superior book. I'll be watching for a 2nd volume from Borneman on MacArthur's later life.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Demoyung
- 07-18-23
Comprehensive
Overall very thorough and detailed. In a few cases some of the details seemed a little trivial.
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- Warf
- 06-11-17
MacArthur are war.
the real story about a man we didn't know. a must read book. Not the God that we thought.
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- Byron J. Swafford
- 10-20-17
American Caesar
While a great General in WW2, I found it interesting to note that he lacked forward thinking, new ideas for battle, and advanced warfare very little. Unlike many German Generals, he isn’t known for anything new. Refusing at the start of the War to acknowledge that HE needed to grasp the New War strategy and combining tactics of the whole Armed Forces to win a World War, and get along with them while doing it. I think Napoleon would have quoted Wellington in saying... “ he came on in the same old way, and we defeated him...in the same old way. Had he been in France at the start of the War commanding troops, very little would have been different for General Doug. He definitely did not have the forward thinking in battle to stop a Blitzkrieg any more than the lame British and French Commanders. That Japan never went “all in” in multiple battles on land and sea led more to their defeat that General Doug.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-06-19
you can do better...
The next time you write a book on history you may want to omit your own biased opinions. Your title could of easily been, "Reasons I Do Not Dugout Doug".
You are better than this.
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- susan whitlock
- 02-29-24
Hit piece on MacArthur
It seems according to this book MacArthur was incompetent and a bumbling idiot who never won at anything. Just not sure how he could have done nothing positive and stayed in uniform
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