Clark Wesley K.

The newest addition to Palgrave's Great Generals series focuses on Andrew Jackson's career including his time as a general in Tennessee and his rise up the Army ranks. Jackson's effective use of spies in war time and of martial law in peace time sparked a debate about the curtailing of civil liberties in the name of national security that continues to this day. Most of all, Jackson was a great motivator who could, with a few carefully selected words and by his own brave example, turn around starved, deserting troops, convincing them to fight. With dramatic scenes of fierce battles and victories, Remini reveals here why Jackson's bold leadership as a general led to his election as President of the United States in 1828.

Sherman is not only one of the most important generals in the American Civil War, but also one of the most famous commanders in the military annals of the western world. He has become an almost mythical character in popular memory, the embodiment of grim-visaged, implacable war. Legend has him burning a sixty-mile-wide swath of desolation across the South, and southerners still confidently assert that their ancestors were burned out by Sherman or hid valuables under the smokehouse to secure them from his vandal hordes. Sherman famously said, "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," and yet, even at his most destructive, he maintained strict limits on the degree of damage his soldiers could inflict. Sherman's wartime career makes a fascinating study of the degree to which the severity of war can be channeled, directed, and limited - especially as it relates to the current war in Iraq.

A compelling study of the military career of five-star general Omar Bradley details his rise to command of the U.S. 12th Army Group in the European theater of World War II, gifts as as a tactician, service as a mentor for younger officers, transformation of the VA into a model government agency, and key legacy for modern military service. 50,000 first printing.

George S. Patton embodied contradiction: a cavalryman steeped in romantic military tradition, he nevertheless pulled a reluctant American military into the most advanced realms of highly mobile armored warfare. An autocratic snob, Patton created unparalleled rapport and loyalty with the lowliest private in his command; an outspoken racist, he led the only racially integrated U.S. military unit in World War II; an exuberantly profane man, he prayed daily and believed God had destined him for military greatness; a profoundly insecure individual, he made his Third Army the most self-confident and consistently victorious fighting force in the European theater. From Patton's boyhood battling dyslexia and becoming an avid reader, to his leadership strategies that modernized the U.S. army, Alan Axelrod delivers a fascinating account of Patton's life and legacy.