A biography of a President and the decisions he made during his time in office. Did touch on some of the time as General, but mostly as the President. I thought maybe it was going to be also about all of the things going on in the fifties like highways, the building of dams, etc… Still a good read.

As the title suggests this is more than a biography of Eisenhower. Instead it provides a deep understanding of the life and times in which Eisenhower existed. Focuses mostly on his time as President.

A fantastic presidential biography about a good leader who was forced to make tough decisions in war. Hitchcock's writing style is engaging, and easy to read.

Very well written and provides true insight into the life of Dwight Eisenhower. For anyone interested in biographies and memoirs, this is a Must Read.

This was a wonderful Presidential biography, highly recommended for those with a strong interest in United States history and the 1950s.

This was a great biography of President Eisenhower. I love presidential trivia and this book provided information that I hadn't heard before. I highly recommend it!

THE AGE OF EISENHOWER by William Hitchcock is a powerful study of Eisenhower's eight years as President. Once neglected by historians, he is now ranked fifth as the most successful president after Washington, Lincoln and the two Roosevelts. All the majors events of his presidency are discussed in depth from the war in Egypt over the Canal, to the U2 incident of the spying over Russia. He was much loved by the citizenry and won a second term easily. I strongly recommend this book which is very well written and contains extensive bibliography if you want to reader further and deeper into his Era. I rate it as five stars.

Hitchcock carefully unwraps the history of the Eisenhower administration, with a balanced attention to both its strengths and its failures.
I was left agreeing with Nixon’s conclusion, that Eisenhower “was a far more complex and devious man than most people realized.” I was also powerfully impressed with this explication of his gift for organization which so well served the development of a federal bureaucracy.

Eisenhower’s diary statement, “The Republican party must be known as a progressive organization or it is sunk.” is interesting in light of the arc that the party took. Hard to believe this is the same Republican party that 60 years later nominated Donald Trump as its leader.

I was left regretting that Eisenhower had had a vision of racial equality that went beyond the superficial, and that he had harnessed the abilities of the more than half of American citizens to who’s talents he seemed to be blind. He was a man of his era, and in his racial and gender views, he did not rise above that era.

Again, I was struck by Eisenhower’s parting warning: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”

That warning seems all too prescient today.

I received a free Kindle copy of The Age of Eisenhower by William Hitchcock courtesy of Net Galley  and Simon and Schuster, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as I have read a number of biographies on American Presidents including Dwight David Eisenhower. It is the first book by William Hitchcock that I have read.

The book focuses on Eisenhower and the 1950's, although it does give some additional background prior to and after that time span. The book is very researched and focuses on debunking the myth that Ike simply strolled through the years he was President by playing golf and having a laid back personality. The reality is very different as pointed out in a number of other biographies on Einsenhower. I found the author's writing style a bit dense so this biography was not quite as enjoyable a read as others I have read.

I recommend this biography, especially if you have not read one on Eisenhower prior to this one, but you may want to weigh getting a copy from your local library first before considering a purchase.