Books by Michael Korda

Ike is acclaimed author Michael Korda's sweeping and enthralling biography of Dwight David Eisenhower, arguably America's greatest general and one of her best presidentsa remarkable man in an extraordinary time, the hero who won the war and thereafter kept the peace.

In the summer of 1940, fewer than three thousand young fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force stood between Hitler and the victory that seemed almost within his grasp.In this superb history of three epic months that saved the world, Michael Korda brilliantly re-creates the intensity of combat in "the long, delirious, burning blue" of the sky above southern England?while tracing, perhaps for the first time, the entire complex web of political, diplomatic, scientific, industrial, and human decisions during the 1930s that inexorably led to the world's first, greatest, and most decisive air battle. With Wings Like Eagles brings to vivid life the extraordinary men and women on both sides of the conflict?from Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring to the ground crews, the German pilots, the American volunteers, and the courageous airmen and airwomen of the RAF.

One of the first two volumes in Harper's Eminent Lives series, Korda brings his acclaimed storytelling talents to the life of Ulysses S. Grant a man who managed to end the Civil War on a note of grace, serve two terms as president, write one of the most successful military memoirs in American literature, and is today remembered as a brilliant general but a failed president. Ulysses S. Grant was the first officer since George Washington to become a fourstar general in the United States Army, and the only president between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to serve eight consecutive years in the White House. In this succinct and vivid biography, Michael Korda considers Grant's character and reconciles the conflicting evaluations of his leadership abilities. Grant's life played out as a true Horatio Alger story. Despite his humble background as the son of a tanner in Ohio, his lack of early success in the army, and assorted failed business ventures, his unwavering determination propelled him through the ranks of military leadership and into the presidency. But while the general's tenacity and steadfastness contributed to his success on the battlefield, it both aided and crippled his effectiveness in the White House. Assessing Grant both within the context of his time and in contrast to more recent American leaders, Korda casts a benevolent eye on Grant's presidency while at the same time conceding his weaknesses. He suggests that though the general's second term ended in financial and political scandals, the fact remains that for eight years Grant exerted a calming influence on a country that had only just emerged from a horrendous civil war. Ulysses S. Grant is an evenhanded and stirring portrait of a man who guided America through a pivotal juncture in its history.

Bestselling author Michael Korda's Horse People is the story -- sometimes hilariously funny, sometimes sad and moving, always shrewdly observed -- of a lifetime love affair with horses, and of the bonds that have linked humans with horses for more than ten thousand years. It is filled with intimate portraits of the kind of people, rich or poor, Eastern or Western, famous or humble, whose lives continue to revolve around the horse.Korda is a terrific storyteller, and his book is intensely personal and seductive, a joy for everyone who loves horses. Even those who have never ridden will be happy to saddle up and follow him through the world of horses, horse people, and the riding life.

Presents the story of four twenty-four year old Oxford undergraduates who took off for Budapest in a beat-up old Volkswagon convertible in October 1956, to bring badly needed medicine to the Budapest hospitals and to participate, at street level, in one of the great, heroic battes of post-war history.

Michael Kordas Hero is an epic biography of the mysterious,Englishman whose daring exploits made him an object of intense fascination, known the world over as Lawrence of Arabia. An Oxford Scholar and archaeologist, T.E. Lawrence was sent to Cairo as an intelligence officer in 1916 and vanished into the desert in 1917. He united and led the Arab tribes to defeat the Turks and eventually capture Damascus, an adventure he recorded in the classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A born leader, utterly fearless and seemingly impervious to pain and danger, he remained modest, and retiring.,Farsighted diplomat, brilliant military strategist, the first media celebrity, and acclaimed writer, Lawrence was a visionary whose achievements transcended his time: had his vision for the modern Middle East been carried through, the hatred and bloodshed that have since plagued the region might have prevented. The democratic reforms he would have implemented as British High Commissioner of Egypt, are those the Egyptians are now demanding, 91 years later. Ultimately, as this magisterial work demonstrates, Lawrence remains the paradigm of the hero in modern times.