The Fate of the Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines by Jonathan Horn

In times of war, there are two types of people: the victors and the losers, but is it possible that both are fighting for the same thing and against the same enemy? Is it even possible that for victory to be achieved, losses must also be sustained, losses that involve a degree of self-sacrifice, an eschewing of self-aggrandizement, and an acceptance of fate incomparable under almost any other circumstances? If so, the battle for the Philippines, during the opening shots of World War II in the Pacific theatre, is exactly such a situation, and historian Jonathan Horn has invited us to step back into time and witness for ourselves the cost of victory: the fate not only of the generals, as the title suggests, but of the nation which the generals represented.

Nearly everyone who has even a rudimentary understanding of World War II, and of the American strategy during it, exemplified by a Europe-first approach embraced by Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, has also heard of the self-serving yet brilliant general who pushed for a front that prioritized what he saw as a more immediate threat: the rising sun of a Japanese empire. Such a man was Douglas MacArthur, and in the half century since his death, his actions during both the Second World War and the subsequent Korean War, in which he would serve admirably but would be discharged dishonorably, the man’s legacy has been fiercely disputed by historians, political strategists, and military commanders alike. Two rival visions of MacArthur’s personality have overwhelmed the imagination of our time. Jonathan Horn does not take either of the two most typical approaches as regards MacArthur, either presenting him in an entirely positive or negative light or, compromising between the two and showing an image that is neither positive nor negative, but neutral. Horn avoids neutrality like the plague, painting a portrait of MacArthur that is at once entirely positive and entirely negative. Strengths and flaws become inseparable, and for once, Douglas MacArthur has come to life.

Far less common in discussions of military commanders is the story of Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, the commander left behind by MacArthur upon his retreat from the Philippines, who courageously but unsuccessfully tried to defend Bataan and Corregidor islands from an oncoming Japanese onslaught. Yet through these pages, he too comes to life, as a far less complex figure than MacArthur—perhaps it is this lack of complexity that made him vulnerable to caricature in the first place—but a figure nonetheless compelling. Loyal and true to his superiors, yet perpetually doubting his moves and struggling through the acceptance of reality and the desire to protect his troops, this is a man to admire, and Horn compels us to admire the alcoholic general who would nearly die in a Japanese POW camp.

Horn brings in the background story of both of these figures, though he spends considerably longer on MacArthur for the simple reason that he had a far longer story to tell. Using quotes from Wainwright’s diary during the war, as well as the correspondence of Douglas MacArthur, his aide Sutherland, the loyal Lew Beebe, George C. Marshall, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, this book is meticulously researched and wonderfully written. At times it is necessary to stop and contemplate the sheer beauty of the writing, despite the ugliness of the situation which it describes. Here is one example:

“They had feared the coming of the rainy season on Bataan, and now it found them midway up Luzon’s central plain, in the town of Tarlac. They had dreamed of taking showers on Corregidor, and now they struggled to keep their bunks dry. They had cursed the dust blinding their eyes, and now they saw mud and mildew everywhere. They had lain awake through bombardments, and now they tried to sleep through thunder…”

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, Horn makes this story center on the sacrifice of Jonathan Wainwright. It may appear that Horn’s purpose is to put MacArthur down; certainly, that is how some have interpreted this work, but I do not think that this is the purpose of the work, or how it should be read. Rather, Horn does not make the reader admire Wainwright and despise MacArthur, but love MacArthur because of Wainwright. Without the latter’s sacrifice, the former’s triumph would have been impossible. Without the former’s triumph, the story of the latter would never have been told. In a strange way, Wainwright completes the picture of MacArthur that we have always wanted but never had. It is by showing MacArthur’s faults that Horn has shown his greatest strength. Through the sacrifice of one, the victory of the other, and the courage of both, the nation as a whole could emerge from what Winston Churchill called its darkest hour, not unscathed, but undefeated, not as angels, but as men whose actions showed the world clearly the better angels of our nature.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

April 29th, 2026

Bibi: My Story by Benjamin Netanyahu

The Middle East is fraught with stories of bravery and stories of cowardice, of war and peace, of all that makes the human heart noble and all that makes it vile. Indeed, throughout history, names that will long be remembered have often carved their mark into the annals of the past because of their actions in this region, which divides three continents: from Lawrence of Arabia to David Ben-Gurion and now, most recently, Benjamin Netanyahu.

It was surprising to me, as I read through the earlier parts of this book, how much time the Prime Minister spent, in his early years, in the United States. This makes his vision of an Israeli-US alliance, akin to that formed by Roosevelt and Churchill during the Second World War, look far less prophetic and far more realistic. Having attended college in the United States, having been the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and having spent a period in Manhattan as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Netanyahu is full of praise for the “arsenal of democracy,” but also warning.

Also surprising is the intense factionalism of Israeli politics. Completely different from the two-party system of the USA, the portrayal of the inner bargains and fights for power, as well as scandal, corruption, and jockeying for parliamentary control, creates an almost laughable picture, yet it is a deadly serious game, for nothing less than the survival of the Jewish state is at stake. It is at once unapologetically partisan, yet rings true nonetheless.

Readers seeking a conventional autobiography will be disappointed. To be clear, Netanyahu does write about his family life, his father’s role in the founding of Israel, and the story of the death of his brother, his hero Yonatan Netanyahu, at Entebbe Airport after the terrorist hijacking. Rather than give only a biography of himself, it seems at times as if Netanyahu is attempting to give a biography of the Middle East, and at that, I certainly believe, he succeeds wonderfully. This is a long book; it is a book that will likely sit on your nightstand and gather dust, but it is a book that should be finished, and when it is finished, you will emerge from your room wiser and more equipped to understand the complex, yet incredibly simple, dynamics of the Middle East.

Having written this book during one of the few brief periods of the last three decades in which he has not been in power, Netanyahu’s highly personal analysis of his life as both a statesman and a man does not include the period for which he is most well-known: specifically, the period following the Hamas massacre of October 7th. However, that is not to say that the book is devoid of interesting periods. From the signing of the Oslo Accords to the Second Intifada, from Cairo to Berlin, Netanyahu captures the prime movers behind the modern geopolitical landscape. Enclosed within these pages are stories of interactions with former Israeli Prime Ministers—some opponents, others, far less, friends: Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Naftali Bennett—they are all here, written about by their arch-nemesis and most long-standing opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Also in these pages, you will find intriguing details about US-Israeli relations: from the controversy-fraught administration of Bill Clinton, plagued with scandal at home yet naively hoping to achieve peace with Yasser Arafat, to Barack Obama, who promised to “lead from behind.” Donald Trump and Joe Biden also have a significant role to play, from the Abraham Accords onward.

Neither does the Prime Minister spend all six hundred pages of this book crying over spilled milk or controversial relations with public figures. He does not exclusively concentrate on the present or the future, on what can be if “the right person is elected,” a narrative which so often fills the reminiscences of public figures. To be clear, Netanyahu devotes a considerable amount of time to clearing his own name from controversy and does, at times, seem a little self-serving. Not to excuse him from acting as a human, but his narrative is full of self-praise evinced by other public figures such as Winston Churchill.

Indeed, Netanyahu evokes, at times, an almost Churchillian sense of destiny. And well may he do so, for throughout these pages, although tinted with personal bias, you see before your eyes a figure of immense proportions and vast schemes come to life: a man like all others, full of errors and vanity, but also a man filled with a passion for the true, the good, and the beautiful; a man preoccupied with the defense of his own nation and of Western civilization more broadly.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 17th, 2026

The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Gilded Age has long been fraught with controversy, from the actions of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil to the trust-busting of Theodore Roosevelt and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Both sides of the political spectrum have a special interest in this period of American history. It was, depending on perspective, an age of greed or an age of enormous technological progress; a period during which the robber barons reigned supreme, or an age when the captains of industry generated thousands of jobs and fueled the economic boom that would send America to the forefront of world geopolitics and economics within a matter of decades.

Now, Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Team of Rivals, dedicates her talent and her pen to this age, and to two figures who were dominant not only in politics, but also in economics. In an intriguing and fascinatingly told tale involving the friendship and rivalry of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, Goodwin weaves into the narrative the questions of the day: is, as the social Darwinists and conservatives believed, the role of government limited by time and space, or is it to play an active, and, in the hands of Roosevelt, incredibly active role in asserting the rights of labor and protecting the interests of the worker? From McClure’s periodical, where Ida Tarbell and her team of “muckrakers,” as Roosevelt, in a fit of anger, would describe them, labored tirelessly to expose what they perceived as injustice on the part of capitalist businessmen and financiers, to the halls of Congress, where Goodwin portrays the group she labels as the “conservatives” as both enemies of the people and, in her view, defenders of the status quo; in short, as corrupt career politicians dedicated to preserving their own livelihoods.

In terms of style, Goodwin has delivered another masterpiece. The characters, personalities, and foibles of both Theodore Roosevelt — the passionate, temperamental, and extremely dedicated former colonel and outdoorsman — and William Taft, in personality his opposite, though in mental fortitude, if not in dedication, his equal, come alive in this narrative. From Roosevelt’s appointment as Vice President and Taft’s tenure as Governor-General of the Philippines, to Roosevelt’s presidency and his nomination of Taft as his successor, Goodwin captures the excitement of the moment, as a team of talented, if biased, journalists set to work to expose the rich and wealthy in what some may call a personal vendetta — in the case of Tarbell — or an ideological obsession — in the case of Lincoln Steffens.

Leading up to the break between the former president and the sitting president, as tensions increased, the issues of the day came to the forefront. With Taft’s catastrophic, though arguably necessary, firing of Roosevelt’s top ally, Gifford Pinchot, the two men came head to head, and both used the power of the bully pulpit to its fullest, ultimately leading to the election of 1912, in which Theodore Roosevelt, wounded after a bullet struck him in the chest during an assassination attempt, for the first and only time in history defeated one of the two main party contenders while running as a third-party candidate, coming in second to the Princeton professor Woodrow Wilson. The Progressive Era is very much an era to be remembered and studied, from the populism of Bryan to the labor strikes throughout the nation and the political backrooms of Washington, D.C.

That said, no book should be spared necessary criticism, and this book is no exception. Goodwin, who worked for Lyndon B. Johnson and is a notable critic of conservatism not only in its manifestations of the nineteenth century but also in its current forms, makes no attempt to conceal her disdain for “laissez-faire economics” and clearly takes a view of government as the cure for all ills. Her view of Roosevelt as primarily a progressive candidate opposed to business freedom is not held by all historians; and neither she nor any other historian has the right to monopolize Roosevelt for her own side. Numerous comments made by Roosevelt, Taft, or other close advisors opposing the muckrakers and labor strikers go ignored or underexplained, and while she defends her thesis well and writes it clearly, she does so at the risk of overlooking evidence that does not suit her view. Of course, this is something that many historians, including those on the right, do regularly, and it is a criticism that should apply not only to this author but to all authors when necessary. Her representation of laborers as primarily peaceful or motivated by righteous intentions is an interesting take, one that should be engaged by those on the right as a claim that overlooks the anarchism and socialism of the day, anarchism that would lead to the assassination of William McKinley. The religious aspect is ignored completely. In fact, the only mention the author makes of religion in the entire 900-page book is to state that Taft’s father defended a court ruling declaring that Christianity should have no special place in America. Further, though she does not demonize Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, or other big business executives, her sympathies are clearly not on their side. In short, this is a book you could and should expect from a progressive, pro-government intervention journalist like Goodwin.

So, what then is the verdict? It is, as nearly all matters are, a complex yet simple answer: it should be read; it should be engaged with. The thesis should be understood but not taken at face value. The facts should not be entirely discounted nor entirely accepted, but should be read critically. Above all, a conclusion must be formed. Agree or disagree, this book will make you choose, and that, ultimately, is the one piece of the puzzle remaining, for which I am proud to recommend this book as a necessary piece of American history.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 6th, 2026

Mark Twain by Ron Chernow

First off, I’ll say this: if I were going to read a 1,200-page biography on Mark Twain, Ron Chernow would absolutely be my pick to write it. After reading Hamilton, I was impressed by Chernow’s ability to combine exhaustive research with compelling narrative. So when Edelweiss gave me an advance copy of Mark Twain, I was genuinely excited.

Unfortunately, the final result left me more frustrated than fulfilled.

The biography certainly has strengths. Chernow’s research is, as always, meticulous. He doesn’t just know Twain—he practically moves into his psyche. He explores Twain’s evolution from a sharp-witted riverboat pilot to a global celebrity, his financial struggles, his literary innovation, and the private grief that haunted him. There are powerful sections that remind you why Twain still matters today.

But there’s a point where depth becomes overload. The book is enormous—nearly 1,200 pages—and it feels it. At times, I found myself slogging through page after page of minute details that didn’t add much to the overall arc. There’s a fine line between comprehensive and overstuffed, and for me, this book crossed it often.

Secondly, and more importantly: as a Christian, I found Twain’s views on faith—not just troubling, but downright offensive. Chernow doesn’t shy away from Twain’s open hostility toward Christianity, and I commend his honesty in that. But Twain’s consistent mockery of Scripture, heaven, and God is hard to stomach. He wrote entire books satirizing Christianity—one about a man who dies of boredom in heaven, another involving a “young Satan” figure on earth. Is it satanic? I honestly don’t know, and I won’t be reading them to find out. What’s clear is that Twain’s bitterness toward God only grew over time, and Chernow portrays him as a rabid anti-Christian, not merely a skeptic. As a believer, I found this deeply disturbing and disheartening.

Third, unlike Chernow’s earlier biographies, this one feels opinionated in ways that detract from the historical work. Take Twain’s “angelfish”—his oddly intense relationships with young girls in his later life. Rather than presenting the facts and letting the reader decide, Chernow heavily editorializes, even suggesting Twain may have been guilty of pedophilia. That’s an outrageous claim, unsupported by any serious historical evidence. It feels speculative at best—and slanderous at worst.

Chernow also makes no attempt to hide his anti-imperialist stance. That’s his right, of course—but it colors the narrative. Time and again, instead of letting Twain’s words speak for themselves, Chernow filters them through his own worldview. As a reader, I felt like I was being told what to think rather than being allowed to draw my own conclusions.

In the end, I respect Chernow’s scholarship. He’s a gifted biographer. But this book crosses several lines: it’s too long, too biased, and—frankly—too indulgent. I walked away more disappointed than enlightened. If you’re a committed Twain scholar or a fan of Chernow’s voice, you might still get something out of it. But for the average reader—especially for Christians—this one may be more frustrating than rewarding.

Nonetheless, I recognize Chernow’s genius. He has thoroughly investigated the facts and has gone to tremendous lengths to report lesser-known details accurately. As an educational biography, this book receives my wholehearted endorsement. As a political manifesto, it does not. It should be read by those seeking serious moral discussion and by those seeking to learn more about one of the most colorful figures in our history—always bearing in mind that the spiritual never should, and never can, be totally abandoned.

Review written by C. A. Gerber

February 27th, 2028