George C Marshall Soldier Statesman Of The American Century

In a career that paralleled the emergence of the United States as an international power, Marshall was a participant in every significant event contributing to the nation's status as a superpower. From his first combat duty in the Philippines at the turn of the century, through both World Wars, into the cold war and the Korean conflict, Marshall was a key figure in devising and implementing US military strategies and foreign policies. Stoler emphasizes the years 1939-1951, when Marshall served as World War II army chief of staff, special presidential representative to China, secretary of state at the beginning of the cold war and Korean War secretary of defense. The book is unique in its merging of military and diplomatic history with biography. It includes a chronology and a bibliographic essay. “Drawing on more detailed works, supplemented by his sound judgments based on his own careful research, Stoler has successfully caught the spirit of the man and his work.” — Forrest C. Pogue, official biographer of Marshall, former director of the George C. Marshall Foundation “Useful, fascinating and very informative... Stoler illuminates many historical debates and events...” — David Eisenhower, author of Eisenhower at War: 1943-1945 “A very readable book based on the most recent scholarship and presented in a way that students can understand.” — Michael J. Hogan, Ohio State University “In a skillful work of compression and synthesis, Mark A. Stoler... sets himself an ambitious dual task: to render comprehensible the life of an individual almost no one knew well and to ground this life firmly in the context of the revolution in American foreign relations during the first half of the twentieth century. The enterprise succeeds admirably, partly because Marshall’s career lends itself to such treatment and partly because Stoler demonstrates a flair for selecting the essential from the immaterial.” — H. W. Brands, The American Historical Review “This is the best available one-volume biography of this distinguished man... Stoler demonstrates Marshall’s intellectual growth as he came to understand international politics and the limits of power.” — Daniel R. Beaver, The Historian “[A] richly researched and balanced assessment... Stoler’s insights into Marshall are many and valuable. He perfectly captures his sterling integrity and the extent of his exemplary nonpartisanship... this is the best single-volume about a true hero.” — Barry F. Machado, The Journal of Military History “[A]n excellent book... There have been short one-volume biographies of Marshall before, but this is the best of the lot... Among the strengths of Stoler’s treatment are his careful exposition of the factors in Marshall’s youth crucial to the formation of his character, the importance of his various experiences with the National Guard, the Plattsburg volunteers, and the Civilian Conservation Corps in conditioning his faith in citizen soldiers, and the formative role of his professional education at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth and the Infantry School at Fort Benning.” — I. B. Holley, Jr., The Journal of American History “[Stoler] is able to present the issues faced by the new chief of staff lucidly and with great insight... In sum, Professor Stoler, with style and verve, has produced an excellent summary volume on George C. Marshall and his times... the book [is] insightful, readable, provocative, and manageable. I highly recommend it.” — Douglas Kinnard, Naval War College Review “[T]he book breaks through the general’s deliberately cultivated stoic persona and demonstrates the humanity that made him so admired in public and private. Stoler’s work stands as a model of its genre, a concise study that incorporates themes from the large body of current scholarship in the field without ever losing sight of its central character... Stoler captures the complexity of the man and his times in a book that is a pleasure to read.” — Donald A. Ritchie, The Oral History Review “This is a useful volume for those who lack the time to read all four volumes of Forrest Pogue’s biography.” — Gaddis Smith, Foreign Affairs

The extraordinary career of George Catlett Marshall—America’s most distinguished soldier–statesman since George Washington—whose selfless leadership and moral character influenced the course of two world wars and helped define the American century. “I’ve read several biographies of Marshall, but I think [David] Roll’s may be the best of the bunch.”—Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times Book Review • “Powerful.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Enthralling.”—Andrew Roberts • “Important.”—William I. Hitchcock • “Majestic.”—Susan Page • “Engrossing.”—Andrew J. Bacevich • “Judicious.”—Walter Isaacson • “Definitive.”—Kirkus Winston Churchill called him World War II's "organizer of victory." Harry Truman said he was "the greatest military man that this country ever produced." Today, in our era of failed leadership, few lives are more worthy of renewed examination than Marshall and his fifty years of loyal service to the defense of his nation and its values. Even as a young officer he was heralded as a genius, a reputation that grew when in WWI he planned and executed a nighttime movement of more than a half million troops from one battlefield to another that led to the armistice. Between the wars he helped modernize combat training, and re-staffed the U.S. Army's officer corps with the men who would lead in the next decades. But as WWII loomed, it was the role of army chief of staff in which Marshall's intellect and backbone were put to the test, when his blind commitment to duty would run up against the realities of Washington politics. Long seen as a stoic, almost statuesque figure, he emerges in these pages as a man both remarkable and deeply human, thanks to newly discovered sources. Set against the backdrop of five major conflicts—two world wars, Palestine, Korea, and the Cold War—Marshall's education in military, diplomatic, and political power, replete with their nuances and ambiguities, runs parallel with America's emergence as a global superpower. The result is a defining account of one of our most consequential leaders.

A captivating and fanatically thorough reevaluation of Marshall's life and times.

Bringing together a who's who of Marshall scholars, this volume examines the major roles assumed by Marshall over his five-decade career - soldier; statesman and peacemaker; and leader and manager - to illuminate key issues and themes surrounding the man and his era.

As the U.S. Army's Chief of staff through World War II, George Catlett marshall (1880-1959) organized the military mobilization of unprecedented number of Americans and shaped the Allied strategy that defeated first Nazi Germany, then Imperial Japan. As President Truman's Secretary of State, and later as his Secretary of Defence during the Korean War, Marshall the statesman created the European Recovery Act (known as the Marshall Plan) and made possible the Berlin Airlift. Ed Cray in this masterful biography brings us face-to-face with a genuine American hero and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Army chief of staff from 1939 to 1945, Marshall directed the organization and training of US land and air forces during World War II. The fourth and final volume of Pogue’s biography deals with Marshall’s ‘other dimension’ as statesman, humanitarian and peacemaker during his tenure as Secretary of State, head of the American Red Cross and Secretary of Defense during the middle period of the Korean War. This remarkable later career included Marshall’s struggle to bring peace to China in the postwar years; his initiation and implementation of the European Recovery Program (the Marshall Plan); his role in the establishment of NATO and the State of Israel; his reaction to assaults by the radical right led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy; and his working relationship as defense secretary with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, probably the most successful collaboration in the history of the two departments. Pogue, former director of the Marshall Library, thus rounds off his monumental study of one of the great leaders of the 20th century.” — Publishers Weekly “In a supremely apt way, George C. Marshall: Statesman 1945-1959 possesses the same characteristics as its subject: it is thoughtful, mature, balanced and full of humanity and intelligence. It is also a very large and detailed work... [it is] not only important for its author’s emphatic and fully-rounded portrayal of a ‘Great Man.’ It is also vital for the reminder it provides of the qualities of statesmanship and character that Western leaders ought to be emulating today.” — Paul Kennedy, The New York Times “Forrest Pogue has written a grand book about a grand person, the concluding volume in an authorized four-part biography that will likely be the definitive study of Marshall. This is history at its very best.” — Guy Halverson, Christian Science Monitor “In this fourth and final volume of his definitive biography of Marshall... Forrest Pogue... has indeed performed a valuable service in faithfully portraying the outsized talent and dedication of one old soldier who never faded away.“ — Theodore C. Sorensen, Washington Post “Throughout his life, [Marshall] counted his country’s interests higher than his own, placed his duties before his desires and his honor before all else. Duty, honor, country: a triad more often patronized than esteemed in our Aquarian age. Nonetheless, reading Pogue’s biography provides a suitable reminder that it was just those values that formed the life of perhaps the greatest American our nation has produced in this century.” — Larry Collins, Los Angeles Times “Under Pogue’s clear lens, Marshall comes across as a man who gave unselfishly of himself for over 50 years of government service: a fitting conclusion to this definitive biography.” — Kirkus Reviews “Pogue’s account of the China mission is fascinating... This fine work is exhaustively researched and written with care and balance. The author has conducted extensive interviews with the men and women who knew and worked with Marshall.” — Edward Hawley, Chicago Tribune “This book is great biography.” — Infantry Journal “Relying upon interviews with Marshall and his contemporaries as well as more than thirty years of research in the Marshall papers, government documents, memoirs, biographies and monographs, Pogue has now completed a truly great biography, fully worthy of its extraordinary subject, that reveals and explains his character as well as the numerous issues with which he was associated... life. All four [of Pogue's] volumes stand as a model in the field of biography, and a fitting tribute to the author as well as the subject.“ — Mark A. Stoler, The Historian “With this volume, Forrest Pogue cements his place alongside such giant biographers as Douglas Southall Freeman and Carl Sandburg... throughout this volume Pogue elegantly portrays Marshall the soldier, Marshall the statesman, and Marshall the man.“ — Albert M. Bottoms, Naval War College Review “Pogue rightly stresses Marshall's importance in the transition from the Pax Britannica to the Pax Americana.“ — Callum A. MacDonald, Reviews in American History “This is political biography at its best. Pogue has mined the Marshall Papers and various government archives and private manuscript collections, and he has mastered the vast secondary literature of the postwar period. A pioneer in the field of oral history, he fills in crucial details and adds telling anecdotes from hours of interviews with Marshall and his associates... in its mastery of detail, its clarity and simplicity of style, even in its understatement, this is a biography worthy in every respect of the man generally acknowledged to be the greatest American statesman of this century.“ — George C. Herring, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society “[Pogue] provides an excellent, sometimes meticulous, tracing of the general course of events and American decision-making... [He] has contributed a massive amount of information and produced a lengthy but readable account of American foreign and military policy during the Truman administration.“ — James L. Gormly, The History Teacher “Pogue's selection and use of sources is impeccable... [he] skillful[ly] blend[s] traditional documentary evidence and oral history interviews.“ — Ronald E. Marcello, The Oral History Review

Winner of the 2018 American Academy of Diplomacy Douglas Dillon Award Shortlisted for the 2018 Duff Cooper Prize in Literary Nonfiction “[A] brilliant book…by far the best study yet” (Paul Kennedy, The Wall Street Journal) of the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan and its long-lasting influence on our world. In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin’s on the rise, US officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continue to shape world events. Benn Steil’s “thoroughly researched and well-written account” (USA TODAY) tells the story behind the birth of the Cold War, told with verve, insight, and resonance for today. Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Benn Steil’s gripping narrative takes us through the seminal episodes marking the collapse of postwar US-Soviet relations—the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe is vividly portrayed. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Steil’s account will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan. “Trenchant and timely…an ambitious, deeply researched narrative that…provides a fresh perspective on the coming Cold War” (The New York Times Book Review), The Marshall Plan is a polished and masterly work of historical narrative. An instant classic of Cold War literature, it “is a gripping, complex, and critically important story that is told with clarity and precision” (The Christian Science Monitor).

"Foreword by Fred Smith, President and CEO, Federal Express No list of the greatest people of the 20th century is complete without General George C. Marshall. Winston Churchill called him the ""organizer of victory"" and ""the last great American."" President Harry Truman referred to him as the ""great one of the age."" Tom Brokaw called him the ""godfather"" of ""the greatest generation."" Even so, many people know Marshall's name without being able to recall his many astonishing accomplishments. Among them: * He personally trained future generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Ridgeway, Patton, and others. * As Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army before and during World War II, he oversaw its expansion from a small, homeland defense force -- smaller than Bulgaria's -- into the mightiest army ever assembled. * As Secretary of State, he introduced the ""Marshall Plan,"" which literally rescued Europe after the war. * He was the first professional soldier ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize and was twice named Time's Man of the Year. Marshall's extraordinary career reflects unparalleled leadership traits and consummate skills, among them vision, candor, a commitment to action, the ability to listen and learn, and not least, selflessness. In an extraordinary chronicle and analysis of legendary leadership, Jack Uldrich brings the life and achievements of General Marshall front and center -- where they have always belonged."