NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist bestselling historian and
author of Our First Civil War comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and
General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War
II.A highly readable take on the clash of two titanic figures in a period of hair-trigger
nuclear tensions.... History offers few antagonists with such dramatic contrasts and Brands
brings these two to life. Los Angeles Times At the height of the Korean War President Harry S.
Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world when he suggested that General
Douglas MacArthur the willful fearless and highly decorated commander of the American and
U.N. forces had his finger on the nuclear trigger. At a time when the Soviets too had the
bomb the specter of a catastrophic third World War lurked menacingly close on the horizon. A
correction quickly followed but the damage was done two visions for America s path forward
were clearly in opposition and one man would have to make way. The contest of wills between
these two titanic characters unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of a faraway war and
terrors conjured at home by Joseph McCarthy. From the drama of Stalin s blockade of West Berlin
to the daring landing of MacArthur s forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into
the war The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era.
