Nigel Hamilton

Most leaders during a time of war have the advantage of leaving memoirs - Churchill's six volume History of World War II - to help us understand their reasons for the decisions they made. Franklin Roosevelt did not. Nigel Hamilton's three volume set attempts to do this on his behalf. Hamilton does not spend as much time on the events of the battles as many other works which makes this set less a history than a psychological biography. The Mantle of Command focuses on the political aspect of show more a sitting President during his unprecedented third term having to shift his way of thinking from mostly domestic issues as America is trying to pull itself out of the Great Depression to a focus on more international issues as America becomes "the arsenal of Democracy." It further shows the difficulty in the early part of the war to bring his top military leaders into line without totally alienating them. Until I read this volume, I was not aware how divided the Chiefs of Staff were in their planning or of their reluctance to accept Roosevelt's strategy. The leadership and political acumen Roosevelt shows is truly amazing.

Hamilton's writing style is perfect for most of today's readers. His narrative is highly organized, yet easy to follow. By not dwelling on the minute to minute details of battles but the general development of the war, he makes the history more personal to the average reader. This is the type of work that might cause a mildly curious person to want to learn more about Operation Torch and serve as a springboard to broaden their interest.

For those who want to see hard hitting accounts of battles this work may be disappointing. However, for those who want to see a person in a leadership position develop and broaden his leadership skills, this is an excellent work. This set of three definitely belongs on the shelves of the student of America's and the world's greatest war. show less

Someday somewhere someone will discover a cure for logorrhea and Nigel Hamilton's ideas will become accessible to the workingman, not just members of the leisure class such as myself. This doorstop closely resembles all those old jokes about a sandwich consisting of two delicious slices of bread with a loathsome meat in the middle. The book was reviewed and blurbed as an examination of strategy and grand strategy as practiced by the opposing presidents in the War of the Rebellion, and it show more begins and ends with short sections which follow that template. In between, though, we get a spurt of schoolboy namecalling and splenetic prose directed at Union General Geo. McClellan and his spineless enabler Abraham Lincoln. One need not think of Little Mac as a battlefield genius to find all this pretty heavy weather; I don't pretend to know what contemporary historical consensus of the man just now is, but I think the historians of my youth who admitted that in many ways he was the right man at the right time for the Union's armies had a point. And, as for Honest Abe, let's just point out that he eventually got results. The book is excruciatingly repetitious; the reader will encounter an enumeration of the number of slaves held in the CSA on virtually every page of a 700-page book. The book's main thesis, that the Emancipation Proclamation finished off any chance of foreign intervention of behalf of the CSA, and thus, the war, is correct, but it's nothing that I couldn't have, and did, read, sixty years ago. The politically correct need not fear the book; he's all in on the ridiculous euphemism "enslaved people" and he assiduously capitalizes the word 'black', so if that's your rap, it will read smoothly. The book at points has good information, and Hamilton's style is okay if you don't mind a shedload of exclamation points and question marks, but really is a colossal waste of precious reading time. show less

Sadly, this is only the first volume of a projected trilogy that never came to be, concluding as the protagonist wins election to the U.S. Congress in 1946, but before he takes his seat. After its appearance, the family and other keepers of the flame closed off any further access, so the author moved on to other projects. It’s interesting to read the book asking why this would be so, for reading it increased my admiration of Kennedy. I found it remarkable that such a charming, intelligent, show more courageous individual came from that family.
It must be conceded that the author repeats more than necessary what a dysfunctional family this was. Does the reader need to be reminded quite this often that “the Ambassador” was a tyrant and an isolationist, or that Rose primly refused to acknowledge what was going on in the lives of the children she abandoned to a series of nannies and boarding schools? This might explain why the author was shut off. Or perhaps it is his devotion to detailing one trait in which Jack did take after his father, his overactive sexual life of compulsion mixed with indifference toward his conquests. Then again, it might be his revelation of the lengths to which JFK’s Addison’s and venereal disease were covered up, not only in his lifetime, but long after his death. Since the protagonist is not even thirty when the book closes, he was clearly just getting up to speed. What more revelations were to come?
Hamilton does a good job untangling myth and reality in the PT 109 incident, and shows the uses to which it was put to launch JFK’s career. One might regret that the author devotes less attention to Kennedy’s political opinions than to other matters, but this leads to one of Hamilton’s contentions, an insight he shares with other observers: Kennedy relished the process of politics, but had a detachment from political stances. This, often seen as simultaneously his greatest strength and weakness as a politician, is traced by Hamilton to an emotional stunting for which his parents were to blame. Yet while it might be true that Kennedy did not care about domestic political issues, Hamilton traces his precocious awakening and grasp of international affairs. In part because of his father’s position, but also in no small measure to his own wit, initiative, and inquisitive nature, Kennedy personally met statesmen of the older generation, many of whom spotted his potential. Even here, though, Hamilton sees the psychology of Kennedy’s family of origin at work. One constant of Kennedy’s entire career was a resolute anti-communism. Hamilton suggests this was rooted in the ways Stalin reminded JFK of his father.
A big book, but despite some repetitiousness, a fascinating read. Recommended. show less

Excellent review and analysis of FDR's transition into a wartime commander in chief and leader of the nations united against the Axis. His breadth of vision and understanding of the roles that logistics, planning, and training must play in the creation of the military means needed; are quite beyond those of his generals and his allies, even Winston Churchill. His charm, tact, and perseverance are severely challenged by the tunnel vision and parochial last war thinking of Marshall, King and show more Secretary of War Stimson. The British, after two years of trying had yet to win a land battle and the Americans, had yet to fight one but each was adamant that they had the solution. Roosevelt, correctly, discerned that the Brits were too weak and the Yanks were nowhere near ready nor able. The learnings, about logistics from Guadalcanal as well as the leadership and training deficiencies during the Kasserine Pass Battle, were unfortunate demonstrations of his foresight. show less