History: The General v. the President

The Greatest Person then Living

Andrew Bacevich

• BuyThe General v. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War by H.W. Brands
  Anchor, 438 pp, £21.00, November 2016, ISBN 978 0 385 54057 5

H.W. Brands is a well-known and prolific historian of an old-fashioned sort. With no axe to grind and no agenda to advance, he is all about telling stories, which he does exceedingly well. In The General v. the President he recounts a remarkable episode in American history: the clash between President Harry S. Truman and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur that culminated with MacArthur being sacked in April 1951.

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