Ike, His Life and Times: His Life and Times

Most biographies of Eisenhower tend toward long and excessively complimentary. Brendon does an excellent job of balancing his subject's strengths and weaknesses in a relatively short book with a style which is both easy to read and dramatic. He is an elegant and incisive writer, with an eye for exactly the right anecdote or quote to capture the essence of a famous personality. Brendon's much shorter biography of Winston Churchill Winston Churchill: A Biography is equally good. Both are recommended. Brendon's best book is his outstanding history of the 1930's The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s. Brendon does for the interwar period what Tony Judt does for the post-war period in his equally outstanding Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945.

Most biographies of Eisenhower tend toward long and excessively complimentary. Brendon does an excellent job of balancing his subject's strengths and weaknesses in a relatively short book with a style which is both easy to read and dramatic. He is an elegant and incisive writer, with an eye for exactly the right anecdote or quote to capture the essence of a famous personality. Brendon's much shorter biography of Winston Churchill Winston Churchill: A Biography is equally good. Both are recommended. Brendon's best book is his outstanding history of the 1930's The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s. Brendon does for the interwar period what Tony Judt does for the post-war period in his equally outstanding Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945.