![\"MCC\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/06\/mcc1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
America\u2019s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region has had many consequences, including a revival of interest in, and appreciation for, the career and worldview of General Douglas MacArthur, whose military exploits spanned fifty years and three continents, and whose reputation for good or ill rests mostly on his campaigns in the Southwest Pacific and the Philippines, his military administration of postwar Japan, and his decision-making during the Korean War.<\/p>\n
In 2014, military historian Mark Perry revisited MacArthur\u2019s important, productive, and sometimes difficult relationship with Franklin Roosevelt in The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur. That same year, Seymour Morris, Jr. wrote Supreme Commander: MacArthur\u2019s Triumph in Japan, a thoughtful and admiring re-telling of MacArthur\u2019s successful postwar administration of Japan.<\/p>\n
Perry views MacArthur as the greatest commander of World War II, and writes that in the Southwest Pacific he \u201ccoordinated the most successful air, land, and sea campaign in the history of warfare.\u201d Morris calls MacArthur\u2019s occupation of Japan \u201cthe greatest feat by America\u2019s greatest general.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2015, the prolific and popular military historian Winston Groom (better known as the author of Forrest Gump) lauded MacArthur (along with Marshall and Patton) in The Generals as an exceptionally good soldier and great captain, who was as brave as a lion, bold as a bull, and audacious and inventive in \u201cmarshaling huge victorious armies.\u201d MacArthur, Groom writes, served his country with distinction, and his memory \u201cenriche[s] the national trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Duffy\u2019s War at the End of the World, which appeared earlier this year, provides a detailed history of MacArthur\u2019s New Guinea campaign, which has long been unfairly overshadowed by the Navy-Marine island battles in the Central Pacific.<\/p>\n
Walter Borneman\u2019s MacArthur at War: World War II in the Pacific has just been published. Borneman, like other MacArthur biographers, notes the general\u2019s character flaws, but emphasizes MacArthur\u2019s sense of mission, strategic brilliance, and \u201cguiding principles of duty, honor, and country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most anticipated, however, is Arthur Herman\u2019s new biography, just released this month, entitled Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior. At 960 pages, it rivals the most comprehensive one-volume treatments of MacArthur to date: William Manchester\u2019s American Caesar and Geoffrey Perret\u2019s Old Soldier\u2019s Never Die.<\/p>\n
Later this fall, H.W. Brands\u2019 The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War is scheduled to be released and, hopefully, will provide a fairer treatment of the Truman-MacArthur controversy than the conventional history that treats Truman as saint and MacArthur as sinner. \u00a0The truth, as usual, is more complex.<\/p>\n
Those searching for the most complete biography of MacArthur and his times must still turn to D. Clayton James\u2019 magisterial three-volume The Years of MacArthur.<\/p>\n
Richard Nixon in his interesting post-presidential book Leaders, noted that in his conversations with MacArthur in the 1950s and early 1960s, \u201c[n]early always MacArthur\u2019s comments got back to Asia.\u201d Nixon wrote that criticism of MacArthur by America\u2019s foreign policy establishment stemmed from the clash between an Atlanticist worldview and MacArthur\u2019s vision of an Asian-centered geopolitics. \u00a0Americans, Nixon wrote, are beginning to appreciate the wisdom of MacArthur\u2019s prediction that \u201cthe history of the world for the next several generations may well be dictated by the men and women of the Orient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, during the battle of the Philippines in World War II, MacArthur told a news correspondent that \u201cthe lands touching the Pacific will determine the course of history for the next ten thousand years.\u201d Those lands are certainly front and center in today\u2019s geopolitics. The MacArthur revival could not come at a better moment.<\/p>\n