This magnificent biography by the world’s foremost expert on the life of George S. Patton portrays the many faces of the general with uncompromising insight: the gruff, demanding public front known—and feared—by millions; the sensitive, intellectual visage shown to intimates; and the self-conscious, emotional, religious man only a handful of people ever met. Martin Blumenson deftly explores the life of this American hero, a paradoxical man who inspired others to greatness but who sometimes questioned the greatness within himself. Patton: The Man behind the Legend, 1885–1945 is a dramatic and memorable portrait of a complex American hero, a man called the greatest combat general of modern times.