Jonathan Horn-THE FATE OF THE GENERALS

No three words from the annals of World War II have echoed through the decades more deeply than General Douglas MacArthur’s famous vow, following Japan’s invasion of – and MacArthur’s ordered retreat from – the Philippines. Yet, as Jonathan Horn provocatively relates in The Fate of the Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines (Scribner), those same words have obscured a no less important vow by the American general MacArthur left behind to defend the archipelago – Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV. He promised to stay even when it meant becoming the war’s highest-ranking American prisoner. Jonathan Horn is an author and former White House presidential speechwriter whose books include Washington’s End and the Robert E. Lee biography The Man Who Would Not Be Washington, which was a Washington Post bestseller. He has written for outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times Disunion series, New York Post, The Daily Beast, National Review, and POLITICO, and has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and PBS NewsHour. A graduate of Yale, he lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, two children, and dog.