Milton S. Eisenhower was one of the most honored and influential statesmen this country has produced. His career spanned government and higher education, and he was a shaping force in both.

This biography by Stephen E. Ambrose and Richard H. Immerman traces the 34th President's younger brother's path from small-town Kansas into the Washington bureaucracy and on through the presidencies of Kansas State, Penn State, and Johns Hopkins. Because Eisenhower himself wrote about his government service in two books, Ambrose and Immerman have concentrated instead on his career as an educator. The portrait they paint is based upon extensive research and interviewing, but it is richly colored with anecdotes, opinions, and personal narrative.

The portrait of Milton Eisenhower that emerges in this book is of a personable, diplomatic, highly effective administrator—innovative, intuitive, abundantly energetic, tenacious, and combative when necessary. The final section of the book depicts a spirited octogenarian whose contributions to American life continued even after more than a decade of official "retirement."

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936–2002) was the author of many books on American history, including Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West and Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 to May 7, 1945, as well as Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point, which was also published by Johns Hopkins. He was the founder of the National D-Day Museum, in New Orleans. Richard H. Immerman is the Edward J. Buthusiem Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow in History and the Marvin Wachman Director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy at Temple University. He is the author and coauthor of many books on American history, including John Foster Dulles: Piety, Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy and Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy.