I had put off reading it until a friend who has made other good recommendations urged me to give it a go. I'm not huge on biographies but had read General of the Army: George C. Marshall not too long before. So the two served as bookends in a way. I thought Manchester was sometimes a little too unsympathetic to those who MacArthur butted heads with. On the other hand, that may have helped keep us the readers to appreciate how MacArthur percieved the world. And that is the biographer's job.