James C. Humes, Prima Publishers, Roseville, CA, 2001, 256 pages, $24.95.

Eisenhower and Churchill: The Partnership that Saved the World, by James C. Humes, fails to show a partnership, and it fails to show how Dwight D. Eisenhower and Winston Churchill saved the world. The book is nothing more than a mediocre dual biography. Humes alternates from a chapter on Churchill to a chapter on Eisenhower, back to a chapter on Churchill, until the time in history when their paths finally crossed. After their historic 1941 meeting, their respective leadership responsibilities kept them from spending much time together. Once the war ended, they met only occasionally.

The book contains few chapters that deal with Churchill and Eisenhower together, so the book is not really about their partnership at all; it is two near-hagiographies stitched together by a marginally adequate attempt to show that the two men shared similar backgrounds and upbringings. But that does not work. Only by generalizing the commonalties to the point of meaninglessness can one successfully draw a parallel between being the son of a powerful, successful English politician and the son of a middle-class, mid-western American father. Equally shaky is Humes' attempt to equate Churchill's absent parents with Eisenhower's disciplinarian father. …