Douglas MacArthur : the Far Eastern general /

A highly negative, unflattering one-volume biography of MacArthur. Schaller argues that MacArthur's legacy must be viewed as a failure. In his succession of commands in the Philippines, Australia, and Japan, MacArthur distorted information and manipulated events to serve selfish, often political, ends. The author asserts that MacArthur deserved only partial credit for the demilitarization and democratization of Japan, and that as UN commander he willfully risked war with China and the USSR to achieve personal vindications. America's "greatest expert on Oriental psychology," Schaller argues, knew little about Asian realities and not much about American politics. The book contains some photographs, cites excellent primary sources, and is fully documented and indexed, but there are numerous typographical errors. For a much better and more thorough biography, see D. Clayton James's The Years of MacArthur (3v, 1970-1985; v.1: CH, Jan '71). -R. E. Marcello, University of North Texas

In this revisionist study, Schaller, history professor at the Univ. of Arizona, argues that MacArthur's commands in the Philippines, the Southwest Pacific, Japan and Korea made drastic demands on him as a statesman and military leader but that he fell grievously short in both respects. The American public, according to the author, was duped by MacArthur's talent for publicity into believing he beat the Japanese virtually alone although his actual role was a supporting one. Schaller contends that MacArthur's occupation administration in Japan implemented reform programs already laid out in Washington, but he obscures the general's vital role in the success of the implementation. He suggests that MacArthur's concern with social justice for the Japanese was less important to him than building political support in the States (he hoped to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1948). Schaller reveals his bias early in the study by the attention he devotes to MacArthur's romantic setbacks between world wars, quoting scurrilous remarks made by the general's former wife at cocktail parties. Photos. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This title is more of a political profile than a full-scale biography. Schaller pays little attention to most of the major episodes of MacArthur's career and ignores his battlefield performances almost entirely. Instead, he presents a somewhat thin and sketchy overview of the nation's Far Eastern policies as they related to the charismatic general during his active years. MacArthur's personality takes a well-deserved drubbing, but there is little which is really new or satisfying. Most libraries are better served by D. Clayton James's exhaustive The Years of MacArthur, Vol. 3, 1945-1964 (LJ 4/1/85) or William Manchester's lively American Caesar (LJ 9/1/78).-- Raymond L. Puffer, U.S. Air Force History Prog., Los Angeles (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Despite the literally dozens of scholarly and popular studies on MacArthur still available, Schaller (The American Occupation of Japan, 1985; etc.) provides a wealth of fresh and damning perspectives on MacArthur's reputation as a military statesman. The Univ. of Arizona history professor charges that the self-styled expert on oriental psychology ""knew little about Asian realities and not much more about American politics."" Nor does the author give much credence to his abilities as a strategist. Without the atomic bomb, he points out, the Philippines (to which the commander of WW II's South West Pacific theater had pledged to return) would have proved ""the slow way to Tokyo""; liberating the island dependency, moreover, was a far longer and bloodier business than the five-star general had predicted. Concluding that MacArthur deserved at most partial credit for occupied Japan's remarkable recovery, Schaller notes how he frequently subverted key reform programs to suit his own presidentail ambitions. As commander of UN forces in Korea, the author argues convincingly, the American Caesar willfully risked war with mainland China and even the Soviet Union to achieve personal vindication. For over two decades after MacArthur's recall, Schaller observes, America's Far Eastern policy centered on containment--a course made inevitable by the general's self-serving actions. Only after Washington came to terms with the Chinese communist regime MacArthur had long sought to destroy, the author contends, did the US escape the most damaging aspects of his long-lived legacy. Of necessity, Schaller covers a lot of familiar ground. He does so, however, with interpretive insight and intelligence that, against the odds, make his harsh, revisionist judgments a genuine contribution to MacArthurian lore. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.