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Title details for The Trials of Harry S. Truman by Jeffrey Frank - Available

The Trials of Harry S. Truman

The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953

by Jeffrey Frank
Fred Sanders
Audiobook
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2 of 2 copies available
Jeffrey Frank, author of the bestselling Ike and Dick, returns with the "beguiling" (The New York Times) first full account of the Truman presidency in nearly thirty years, recounting how a seemingly ordinary man met the extraordinary challenge of leading America through the pivotal years of the mid-20th century.
The nearly eight years of Harry Truman's presidency—among the most turbulent in American history—were marked by victory in the wars against Germany and Japan; the first use of an atomic bomb and the development of far deadlier weapons; the start of the Cold War and the creation of the NATO alliance; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight a costly "limited war" in Korea.

Historians have tended to portray Truman as stolid and decisive, with a homespun manner, but the man who emerges in The Trials of Harry S. Truman is complex and surprising. He believed that the point of public service was to improve the lives of one's fellow citizens and fought for a national health insurance plan. While he was disturbed by the brutal treatment of African Americans and came to support stronger civil rights laws, he never relinquished the deep-rooted outlook of someone with Confederate ancestry reared in rural Missouri. He was often carried along by the rush of events and guided by men who succeeded in refining his fixed and facile view of the postwar world. And while he prided himself on his Midwestern rationality, he could act out of instinct and combativeness, as when he asserted a president's untested power to seize the nation's steel mills.

The Truman who emerges in these pages is a man with generous impulses, loyal to friends and family, and blessed with keen political instincts, but insecure, quick to anger, and prone to hasty decisions. Archival discoveries, and research that led from Missouri to Washington, Berlin and Korea, have contributed to an indelible and "intimate" (The Washington Post) portrait of a man, born in the 19th century, who set the nation on a course that reverberates in the 21st century, a leader who never lost a schoolboy's love for his country and its Constitution.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 8, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781797137575
      • File size: 491377 KB
      • Duration: 17:03:42

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 20, 2021
      The quintessential Middle American rose to the occasion in wrestling with issues of vast international import, according to this shrewd presidential history. New Yorker contributor Frank (Ike and Dick) recaps Harry Truman’s eventful seven years in office, during which he approved the atomic bombing of Japan, weathered the hottest stretch of the Cold War, and launched a key civil rights initiative by desegregating the armed forces. Frank’s Truman is sensible, determined, and decisive, but impulsive (he sent a letter threatening to rearrange the nose of a music critic who panned daughter Margaret’s opera recital); able to hold his own with Churchill and Stalin, but too deferential to his advisers and the military brass. (Truman’s greatest mistake, Frank argues, was allowing Gen. Douglas MacArthur leeway to invade North Korea, which brought China into that war.) Frank astutely analyzes the geopolitics Truman confronted while conveying his character in elegant, evocative prose: “He walked with a rapid, soldierly gait, eyes straight ahead, often smiling, managing to exude confidence despite what a top aide called a ‘wholesome sense of inadequacy.’ ” The result is a discerning portrait of a president who achieved a lot just by muddling through. Photos. Agent: Tina Bennett, Bennett Literary.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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