General MacArthur was the last of the Great Men. It's hard to overstate his talents. Number 3 cadet at West Point (of all time. #1 is Robert E. Lee, #2 a nobody from the class of 1884), decorated for valor again and again in WWI, a brilliant and unconventional commander of amphibious warfare in the Philippines, and Proconsul to Japan, where he single-handledly reformed the devasted country into a modern nation. His genius, energy, vision, shaped the world we live in.

And yet, he was a deeply flawed commander, a tragic hero in the sense of the Ancient Greeks. A brilliant attacker, he was caught woefully unprepared three times, bringing his command to the edge of catastrophe. Valuing loyalty above all else in his subordinates, he flouted the orders of his commanders, finally leading to his dismissal in 1951. He was reckless in exposing himself to danger, but his troops mocked him as 'Dugout Dug.' There was not a racist or colonialist bone in his body, yet he wielded immense powers as an unelected potentate in the Philippines and Japan. He performed constantly, building up the persona of the Supreme Commander, not to conceal weakness but because his authentic self was a Victorian romantic deeply out of time in the 20th century.

Manchester captures MacArthur's genius and flaws in this immense, 700 page, century-spanning biography. This is more than a mere military history, Manchester somehow captures the changing spirit of the age and place, in that distant Pacific Rim ruled over by America.