Dwight Eisenhower's At Ease: Stories I Tell To Friends

Dwight Eisenhower, in his autobiography At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, credits his upbringing with his success as a United States President. His thesis is that the tone and expectations parents set in a young child’s life greatly effect the child in his/her adult life. Growing up with five other brothers,
Eisenhower’s family had money problems. His father’s business partner left him with a failing store and a lot of unsold merchandise. Although feeding six growing boys had to add stress to his parents,
Eisenhower says that he never knew how tight money actually was and lived a happy, worry-free life as a child. Since Eisenhower did not have very much money of his own he chose to go to West Point after a friend recommended it. West Point,

One thing I found remarkable, is that when each brother would go to college all the other brothers would work tirelessly trying to help fund their brother’s college education. It takes a very special family environment to raise six selfless boys. Additionally, proving his thesis, Eisenhower’s disciplinary problems as a child effected his adult life as well. Young Eisenhower had a small plot of land on his parent’s farm and was allowed to grow whatever he liked and to sell it. This caused Eisenhower to

grow attached to money, which later caused problems in his days at West point as it turned into a gambling problem. Whenever Eisenhower had money the thought of saving it never came to mind.
The research in this book is lacking due to the fact that it is stories and accounts from
Eisenhower’s personal life. While there are no sources cited for research, Eisenhower does include his disciplinary record from West Point that the white house obtained after he became president. This strengthens the thesis because his records are full of mistakes he made but none of them are to out of line. While Eisenhower’s parents provided him with a good childhood they did not demand extreme order leading to Eisenhower receiving marks for small details such as his room being 70 degrees at

It talks about the first three days of his presidency spent touring Korea and his approach to war. Eisenhower believed small attacks would not win the war.
The book At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends is more focused on Eisenhower’s life growing up, and the circumstances that led to his presidency. However, Eisenhower never did anything small, even as a child.
When he had a goal he accomplished it all thoroughly with no loose ends left to spare. Eisenhower was a go big or go home type of guy. Because of this, the information in America Past and Present on his quick jump to missiles and nuclear weapons is not surprising. Eisenhower was able to handle the tension the
Cold War brought early in his president with ease because of his military back ground. While the textbook and the book don’t cover the same period in Eisenhower’s life, readers can easily tell what caused Eisenhower to handle himself as president like he did from reading At Ease: Stories I Tell to
Friends.
I would definitely recommend this book to students. It is a long read, but the stories