Rating: 
Summary: Middling
Review: I came away from this book with a good portrait of Ike and a much better understanding of how grueling the Normandy campaign was, especially after D-Day. Perhaps that should have been sufficient reward, but Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life suffers from annoying flaws. Plenty of twisted sentences made it past its editor. The book is also terribly repetitious (How many times do we have to read that Ike was a heavy smoker?). On a deeper level, other than the decision to go ahead with the Normandy invasion on June 6, what role did Eisenhower play in shaping the invasion plans? D'Este doesn't answer this question clearly. The most annoying aspect of the book is D'Este's tendency to quote other authors and lean on their opinions. It's fine if he agrees with the judgments of his fellow Ike scholars, but he owes his readers his own judgments, in his own words, with the historians he leans on (or disputes) relegated to the footnotes.
Rating: 
Summary: A Soldier's Life
Review: I have never found Dwight D. Eisenhower to be the interesting of a leader. True, he was Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, and a two term president of the United States, but he often seemed a little dull. I thought this until I read Carlo D'Este's book Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life. In this book, Eisenhower is presented as a very ambitious and far seeing soldier who did much to shape the army that brought America to victory in the Second World War. He missed World War One, butt during it, and especially between the wars, he was an important part of the army staff, and through it made many contacts that would serve him well as Supreme Allied Commander. These include George Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, Mark Clark, George Patton, Hap Arnold, and Omar Bradley. All of these men did much to further Eisenhower's career, and he did the same for many of them. While this book does not portray General Eisenhower in a negative light, his mythical status is stripped away, and a much more human, and much more fascinating, Eisenhower emerges. This is a great book about a great man and a must for any fan of Ike or World War Two.
Rating:
Summary: Fun,fast read- -interestingly tough on Ike and
Review: I like new views of old subjects and I've read all the Ike and WWII books. This one gives the picture of the weaknesses of Ike and also certain unknown strengths of Monty. It in no way diminishes the greatness of Ike. It merely dispels certain myths. Monty deserves some revisionism after all the bashing books, many writen by other soldiers. Althought Bradley was not mentioned much, the book dispels the myth here and Bradley justifiably is diminished in stature.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely readable intro to Ike
Review: I rather expected a biography of Eisenhower to be a bit plodding in comparison to ones on Patton and Rommel, but D'Este really does a great job of holding the reader's attention. I take no issue with his decision to halt the story at the end of WWII because I had no interest in Ike's presidency. Other reviewers are far more learned in comparing this rendition of Eisenhower's life with others in the field, but from my perspective as the occasional "dabbler" in the area of WWII non-fiction, I thought this book was a good overview of the personalities behind the major SNAFU's -- and victories -- of the allied forces in North Africa and Europe.
Rating: 
Summary: Much better bios of Ike available
Review: I really wanted to enjoy this book, but found after wading through it, there was really little new here. The author does present a new case about the Eisenhower family's business dealings in Abilene from the days before and up to Dwight's birth, but most of that is of little interest to scholars. Plus, when it comes to sex and scandal, there's nothing really new here when it comes to Kay Summersby, and their alleged romance during World War Two. He says it didn't happen (and it probably didn't), but really doesn't provide the solid link of evidence to disprove it which the dust jacket hints it would.
My biggest complaint about this book is someone was apparently asleep in the proofreading of it. There are a number of grammar errors and typographical errors, particularly in the early chapters. Also, someone needs to explain to the author why Ike and Mamie didn't have a radio in 1917 as they lived in cramped living quarters, because there was no commercial broadcasting in the United States until 1920. And, of course, the book stops after Germany's surrender in World War Two. So this book never even looks at the development of NATO, Ike's tenure as Chief of Staff, Columbia University, or his years in the White House. Truthfully, much of this book relies on quotes not credited unless you read the footnotes from previous books. Readers looking for a gripping story that parallels the years of Eisenhower's life this book covers, should find a copy of Merle Miller's "Ike the Soldier." It remains the most fascinating story about Eisenhower's years from Abilene until the end of World War Two. For a look at his post-war years preceding the 1952 election, turn to Ambrose. Ambrose's works on Eisenhower's presidency are also worth reading, and for scholarly works, there are voluminous writings. As much as I hate to say it, choose one of those over this book.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy successor to John Toland
Review: I was delighted to see the glowing initial reviews of EISENHOWER, because when I read my advance copy of the book, I thought my delight in it might be colored by my friendship with Colonel D'Este, and my knowledge of how hard and how long he worked on it.I'm glad to see that others share my opinion of this work. It's clear that it will be around a long time, cited as the best work on Eisenhower. I was reminded, as Colonel D'Este worked on this book, how much his 'Get It Right, no matter what it takes' philosophy was like that of another officer I knew when I called him "Captain" and he called me "Sergeant" and who later became the distinguished historian John Toland. EISENHOWER proves that Colonel Carlo D'Este has clearly become the worthy successsor to Captain JOhn Toland. W.E. Griffin
Rating:
Summary: A Very Honest Appraisal of a Great and Complex Man
Review: Ike is a fascinating person to me. His life is a truly American story of rising from a hardscrabble Kansas upbringing to the heights of American military and political leadership. I've read 4-5 excellent books covering different facets of Ike's career, but this masterpiece is the best at focusing strictly on Ike's military career. It was certainly an extraordinary career, though the first 20 years of it included many setbacks and heartbreaks before Ike's rise to everlasting distinction beginning in late 1941 following Pearl Harbor. While I love Stephen Ambrose's books, he comes perilously close to hagiography, for he makes no bones of his belief in Ike as hero. D'Este, by contrast, is brutally honest and sometimes very critical in spots. I think he covers the full spectrum of this very extraordinary and veru complex man - charisma, charm, cunning, determination, times of decisive leadership as well as periods of indecisive dithering. Ike comes across as very human, but for all his inherently human shortcomings, he also emerges as a truly great man. This book handles the military campaigns of WWII - the setbacks and the glories - in a very readable format. Ike is shown as an uncertain leader in North Africa, but by the epic Ardennes Campaign (Battle of the Bulge) he has asserted himself as a decisive leader. The book also shows the complexity of Ike's job in managing a fractious Allied coalition - no easy task!
Rating:
Summary: Another fine biography by D'Este
Review: In his second foray into biographies, D'este does a brillant job of bringing Eisenhower the man to the fore front. D'Este gives a great deal of insight into the nature of Eisenhower's peronality by delving into the relationships he had with his brothers and the some-what unique relationship he had with Mamie his wife. D'Este, in addition, shows a much differnt side of chain-smoking Eisenhower, than the public usually sees, who has quite a temper and a vocabulary to make a sailor blush. One of the best sections of the book deals with Eisenhower's leadership during the North African campaign. D'Este characterizes this period of where Ike's leadership was lacking for incompetant. The author does a great job dealing with Operation Overlord (for the definitive account of the Normandy campaign read the author's Decision in Normandy) and the time period leading up to the German surrender. This is a fine biography and one that should be in every WW II student's library. What makes this biography great is D'Este demonstrates all sides of Eisenhower - both good and bad; and his analysis is first rate.
Rating:
Summary: Well-Written Biography Of Ike's Military Career
Review: There is certainly no shortage of biographies of Dwight David Eisenhower, but this particular effort written by Carlo D'Este concentrates brilliantly on a comprehensive coverage of Ike's military career as an officer, focusing much more than any of the other treatments of Ike's life on the amazing transformation Eisenhower made from being a staff officer to becoming the Supreme Allied Commander for the European Campaign. Indeed, Eisenhower was literally transformed from the doldrums of being a career Lt. Colonel to being a five star General in just over three years, based on his unusual organizational abilities and the occasion of the outbreak of WWII. This was done based on his long apprenticeship as a career officer, with a multitude of trying and difficult assignments, including one long-term tour as General Douglas MacArthur's aide and later his executive officer. Eisenhower's forte was his ability to organize and oversee a variety of complex assignments simultaneously, and his keen sense of bureaucratic gamesmanship. It was this set of capabilities that General of the Army George Marshall keyed in on and recognized as crucially important to whoever would command the prosecution of the war with the Allies in Europe, which both Marshall and Churchill understood would be a titanic effort, and one so complicated that no one short of a brilliant bureaucrat certainly would not be able to execute. In the midst of all this Sturm und Drang, Eisenhower had to learn the lessons of modern warfare, for he was neither a solid tactician nor a logistician. Through the crucible of both the African and Mediterranean campaigns Ike gained a better understanding of how to carry through the planning and the execution of the different phases of a campaign successfully. Still, this was no easy task. He was personally stretched to the limits of endurance, and was unable to sleep for weeks prior to the Normandy invasion. He suffered the hardships of long absences from his wife and family, and the rumors of an affair with his English jeep driver Kay Summersby ran rampant. Still, he held the coalition of quite different egos and often clashing personalities together extraordinarily well, forging uneasy alliances with Field Marshall Montgomery and with a host of other difficult people to smooth out the incredibly difficulty task of getting all of the aspects of the mammoth D-Day invasion plan working together. Yet beneath the calm and driven exterior was a literal volcano of emotion, for he was a mercurial type who demanded much of his subordinated, and who also drove himself quite as mercilessly. D'Este is highly critical of Eisenhower's performance in many ways, and shows how various blunders by Eisenhower both lengthened and extended the war. Yet no one can deny the titanic triumph Ike was largely responsible for in terms of making D-Day a success and for then determinedly stamping out the stubborn remnants of resistance in the long and difficult drive toward Berlin. We are treated to glimpses of Ike's sense of frustration in his refusal to sit down with the defeated German Generals due to their barbarous conduct during the war, and he (along with Winston Churchill) once advocated for the summary execution of all such captured senior officers before being outvoted by Roosevelt, who wanted a trial to showcase how civilized and judicious we would be in extending the rule of law even to those who had been deliberately lawless themselves. This is a wonderful book, and one I am sure you would benefit from reading. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Story, Fair Writing, Poor Proofreading
Review: There is so much compelling in Eisenhower's story and his rise from obscurity, (he was a major for 16 years) to command of the greatest invasion in the history of armed conflict. D'Este gets most of telling this story right, especially the battles. D'Este also compellingly conveys the loneliness of command; you could cut the tension with a knife the morning Ike decides, based on the weather report, to launch the invasion of Europe on June 6th. The weight of that decision, and the fate of so many men, must have been crushing. And yet I can't recommend this book. There no cohesive narrative flow; D'Este jumps around too much and as a result makes it hard to follow him sometimes. Even worse, this book is replete with factual errors, some galling. His map of Northern Africa in 1942 confuses Algeria with Morocco. How the hell does that happen? Ike's father apparently married at the age of 2 based on the dates cited in the book. I could go on, but there is no point. Instead of this book, pick up Ambrose's two volume bio.
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