I used this book (an older edition) on my first trip to New York City and I found it very succinct and helpful. If you don't want lengthy descriptions and lots of historical background, this the book for you. It gets to the point about some of the "must sees" and "shouldn't miss", as well as warning you about some cultural differences. The Essential series is also great because it's thin and lightweight, yet some color pictures so that you can recognize some of the sites you're searching the skyline for.

I have read all of the books in the "American Presidents" series published thus far, and this is a very disappointing entry in an otherwise great series. Tom Wicker is a journalist, not a historian, and it shows. He merely presents a narrative chronology of Eisenhower's presidency, devoting only a few paragraphs to his life before he entered the Oval Office. In what is essentially a long magazine article, you never learn a thing about Eisenhower as a person, and Eisenhower emerges as a two-dimensional figure, not the fascinating man that he was. Worst of all, Wicker is so one-sided in his coverage, he tries to find fault in even Eisenhower's unmitigated successes. This ends up simply a book-length critique. It is blinkered and one-sided, with no sense of perspective or context. There are many better biogrpahies of Eisenhower available. Skip this one.

I thought I'd present an alternative viewpoint to the obviously irate folks who have written so far. While Wicker's book is far from a complete biography (this series -- and I have read all but the TR volume -- was never intended to be THE definitive account, only an introduction of sorts), it does present Eisenhower's presidency in relatively comprehensive terms. I was left wanting more, but one can take this book, armed with a general outline, and pursue the subject further.

As for the negative tone, I am not offended, nor am I disappointed. There have been plenty of fawning biographies written about Ike (check out any Ambrose volume), so it is only fair that we get a different take. Ike's presidency, like so many, had its shining moments, but also its shame. Wicker correctly identifies Ike's weaknesses, including a tendency to overdelegate and of course, a reluctant, weak-willed enforcement of civil rights laws. It is also important to note that Ike failed to take on that era's most poisonous demagogue, Joseph McCarthy.

Writing a hagiography would be easy given our country's worship of military figures, but this is a political biography. The years from 1953 to 1961 were not perfect, and Wicker understands that the leadership must be held accountable for some of that decade's less admirable turns.

Tom Wicker spent thirty years writing on politics for the New York Times. Having worked as a young reporter in the 1950s, he combines memories of actual events with secondary sources to produce a short, lively monograph on Eisenhower's presidency.

Older readers can remember the media Ike: the winning smile, the bumbling answers at press conferences, the incessant golf. The electorate loved him, but contemporary observers were not impressed. They looked on him as a career soldier who despised politics, leaving handling of foreign policy to the slightly frightening John Foster Dulles and domestic policy to no one at all.

Wicker admits that this was once his view but no longer. However, he adds that Eisenhower's growing reputation owes nothing to domestic affairs. Perhaps his major success in this area was the Interstate Highway Bill of 1955, which is still financing our interstate roads. Trivia buffs note: this was the last major Republican program that required new taxes.

Wicker joins two generations of historians in condemning Eisenhower's refusal to speak out against McCarthy or in favor of civil rights. All agree this was politically astute but morally deplorable.

The 1954 Supreme Court decision on segregation came as an unpleasant shock to Eisenhower, but he was in good company. Most northern officials were lukewarm (an admirable exception was attorney general, Herbert Brownell). Holding racial views similar to Lincoln's, Eisenhower disapproved of mistreating Negroes but believed their capacities did not measure up to those of the white race. Wicker's discussion spends more time on Chief Justice Warren than the president, but it's an eye-opener. Legend gives Warren credit for the decision, but this is wrong. He didn't join the court until the case was nearing its end. On his arrival, it was already 5-4 in favor of desegregation. His accomplishment was convincing opponents to switch their votes. Such a controversial decision required unanimity, Warren pointed out. A split Court would encourage southern resistance, bringing disorder to the country and casting doubt on the Court's legitimacy. Good patriots all, they switched, including the hidebound southern racist, Stanley Reed. Does anyone believe this could happen today?

Among America's long line of political scoundrels, Joseph McCarthy stands out for sheer vulgarity. Many supporters in the Senate including Richard Nixon thought he was slightly creepy. That his wild accusations of rampant communist subversion ruined many careers without turning up any new spies was public knowledge. The New York Times and Washington Post pointed this out. Conservative Time Magazine heaped ridicule on him.

But no elected official dared cross McCarthy. Contemptuous in private, Eisenhower took care never to make his feelings public although newspapers regularly found hints between the lines. The Senate censure in 1954 happened only because of McCarthy's increasingly insulting behavior and a modest decline of anticommunist hysteria. It was a slap on the wrist, and McCarthy remained in charge of his committee, so no one can explain why he suddenly fell silent. Wicker has no explanation, and he concludes with the usual regret that Eisenhower failed to take a courageous moral position.

Historians always attack politicians for refusing to take courageous moral positions, forgetting that doing so is invariably disastrous. Perhaps the greatest example is Lincoln's emancipation proclamation in September 1862. Although a feeble antislavery gesture, it was unpopular in the north. Democrats happily pointed out that Lincoln had converted a war for the union into a war for the Negro, and they crushed Republicans in the election two months later.

Foreign policy is almost entirely responsible for Eisenhower's improving reputation. Even those of us who remember the 1950s forget how close World War III seemed. Many national leaders and several of the Joint Chiefs wanted to get on with it as soon as possible. America's foreign policy seemed in the hands of elderly secretary of state John Foster Dulles, a pugnacious, evangelical who had been lecturing foreigners on American virtues since the Wilson administration. He made almost everyone nervous with enthusiastic talk of liberating eastern Europe, regaining China, and using atomic weapons if provoked excessively. It turns out Dulles was firmly under Eisenhower's thumb, and this rhetoric mellowed as years passed. The president himself was far more peaceable than anyone thought at the time. He gets enough credit for ending the Korean war but too little for refusing to strike back at China's threats to Formosa (his military advisors were raring to go). When he aborted the English-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956, he was not reading opinion polls. Americans generally approved the invasion.

Most impressive of all, he kept the military firmly under his thumb. Despite the usual 1952 campaign rhetoric about defeating communism, Eisenhower held the defense budget level when he wasn't reducing it. His finest hour (although no one thought so at the time) came after Russia launched Sputnik in 1957. His announcement that orbiting a satellite was not a big deal produced universal dismay. Editorials denounced his short-sightedness; cartoons pictured him with his head in the sand. His poll ratings dropped to their lowest. Despite additional Russian space spectaculars, he did not change his mind, quashing all efforts to launch crash military programs. John F. Kennedy spent much of the 1960 campaign denouncing the administration for underestimating the communist threat, cruelly starving the armed forces, allowing the Russians to achieve military superiority. JFK was a far more aggressive cold warrior than his predecessor.

Like all volumes in the excellent American Presidents series, Wicker's is a quick read: 140 pages. Unlike the others, it's not really a biography. Eisenhower's greatest accomplishment was his meteoric rise to command in WWII after twenty years of obscurity. Winning the presidency was easy by comparison; after all he was the most popular man in the country. Wicker admits this, but he skips over the early life. As an account of his presidency, it breaks no ground but the author's anecdotes and outspoken opinions make it a lively addition to the definitive biographies.