MacArthur at War

World War II in the Pacific

By: Walter R. Borneman

Narrated by: David Baker

Length: 19 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

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 Audio

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Comprehensive

Overall very thorough and detailed. In a few cases some of the details seemed a little trivial.

MacArthur are war.

the real story about a man we didn't know. a must read book. Not the God that we thought.

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.

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.

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