AMERICAN CAESAR by William Manchester

     MacArthur Writ Large as Life

This book was my introduction to the narrative histories of William Manchester. It opened up for me an interest in WWII in general and in the great figures of that era in particular. Manchester is a wonderful prose craftsman. He can put together a paragraph like the finest fiction writer. Manchester is also adept at filling the need we have for hero worship, the idea that the men who determined the fate of civilization, and saved us from tyranny, must needs be great—larger than life. He manages to downplay their personal foibles, suborning such short-comings to the personality traits that make them great. This biography of Douglas MacArthur is no exception. When listening to this biography we quickly learn that Manchester pulls no punches. We quickly learn about MacArthur’s narcissism, his inability to accept blame, his need to be in control of every detail. On the converse, we also learn about his almost transcendent competence in organizing a battle theater and for commanding the respect and loyalty of his staff. This sympathetic biography will give you the impression that no one else in the entire world could have possibly directed the forces in the South Pacific to victory with to few American lives lost other than MacArthur. Larger than life? Perhaps. Entertaining and engaging? Certainly. Manchester’s work has an epic quality to it, that quality that not only are you learning about a great moment in history, but that it mattered.

At the end of the production the narrator comes on to announce that “this book has been narrated by Tom Parker (aka. Grover Gardner). I found Gardner’s voice less grating than his effort on Shelby Foote’s Civil War series—although here he never reaches the level where he could be considered to enhance Manchester’s work—at least here he is not an obstacle to the text. Words that you will never hear me say about Gardner are: soothing, pleasant or relaxing. But, as I have said before, Gardner’s voice has the one admirable quality of being easy to differentiate from background noises. His diction is always crisp,  always clear and always understandable in even the most noisy environments.