In modern South Korea, practicing shamans worship a 20th-century American general as a literal deity, building shrines and seeking his guidance from beyond. This episode opens a comprehensive encyclopedia source to understand how Douglas MacArthur engineered himself into a mythological force while still alive, and how a man who championed a new constitution, democratization, and the breakup of corporate monopolies in occupied Japan carried an ego so monumental it ultimately collided with civilian control of the American military.

The story runs from his Medal of Honor father Arthur MacArthur and his mother 'Pinky', who kept him in curls and skirts until age eight and moved into a hotel overlooking West Point, through a rogue 1914 reconnaissance shootout at Veracruz, the Rainbow Division and becoming the youngest general in the AEF at 38, th ...