This massive work is biography at its very best. Literate and meaty, incisive and balanced, detailed without being pedantic. Mr. DEstes Patton takes its rightful place as the definitive biography of this American warrior. --Calvin L. Christman, Dallas Morning News
DEste tells this story well, and gives us a new understanding of this great and troubled man.-The Wall Street Journal
An instant classic. --Douglas Brinkley, director, Eisenhower Center
A Destiny Fulfilled
D'Este's Patton: A Genius For War is among the finest biographies of a military figure that I have ever read. It deservedly ranks alongside Freeman's Lee (4 volumes, not the abridgement) and Manchester's biography of MacArthur, American Caesar. It helps to have an engaging subject, which these three certainly did. D'Este's bio of Eisenhower has been languishing on my shelf for quite some time. If I live long enough to read all the books I intend to read, I will some day tackle D'Este's Ike bio, and if he can rivet my attention there the way he did with Patton, that will place D'Este in rarified air indeed, given Ike's dearth of flamboyance, complexity and passion vis-à-vis Patton.
One of the most illuminating details in D'Este's Patton for me is the story of the affair in the mid-1930s that Patton had with the young woman, Jean Gordon. She was the close friend of his daughter, Ruth Ellen, and the daughter of his wife Beatrice's half-sister. D'Este writes that Patton was "...flattered that a beautiful young woman would find a balding, middle-aged man attractive, and seemed powerless to resist." Perhaps driven by frustration over an unfulfilled destiny, Patton sought life affirmation in the arms of a woman less than half his age. Little did he know what destiny was still in store for him and that his life would yet be affirmed the way he had always hoped, by leading a great army into battle.
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