Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (Oxford Paperbacks) - Softcover

Hamby, Alonzo L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195124979 ISBN 13: 9780195124972

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Harry S. Truman is remembered today as an icon--the plain-speaking president, "Give 'em Hell Harry," the chief executive who put "The Buck Stops Here" on his desk. But Alonzo L. Hamby shows that there was more to Truman than the pugnacious fighter so prominent in popular memory. Insecure, ambitious, a man of honor, a partisan loyalist, an agrarian Jeffersonian Democrat who became a champion of big government, Truman was a complex figure who fought long and hard to triumph over his own weaknesses.
In Man of the People, Hamby offers a gripping account of this distinctively American life, tracing Truman's remarkable rise from marginal farmer in rural Missouri to shaper of the postwar world. Truman comes alive in these pages as he has nowhere else, making his way from the farmhouse, to the front lines in France during World War I, to the difficult small-business world of Kansas City--all the time struggling with his deep feelings of inadequacy and immense ambition. Hamby provides an honest, incisive look at the rising politician's relationship with Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast, who sponsored his career from the county court to the U.S. Senate. We see how Truman, a ferocious and skilled fighter in factional party battles, tried to balance his sense of honor with his political loyalties. Free of corruption himself, he nevertheless refused to repudiate Pendergast even when the boss was sinking under the weight of his ties to organized crime. Hamby also offers the best account yet of Truman's critical years in the Senate, covering not only his World War II probe of the defense program but also his neglected and revealing populist investigations of the railroads during the 1930s. He demonstrates that Truman was one of the most popular and respected members of the upper house.
Hamby is particularly acute in his portrait of Truman's volatile presidency. He criticizes some aspects of the decision to drop the atomic bombs against Japan but concludes that, considered in context, the act was understandable and justified. Providing new insight into the Cold War, he identifies the Turkish and Iranian crisis of 1946 as crucial turning points in Truman's attitudes toward the Soviet Union. Thoroughly covering Truman's struggle for "liberalism in a conservative age," Hamby also sheds great light on the president's Fair Deal domestic program.
Harry Truman, Hamby writes, was a flawed man--insecure, often petty and vindictive--yet one of the great presidents of the twentieth century. But Americans cherish him less for what he did than for who he was: an ordinary person who worked his way up the political ladder to the summit of power. In Man of the People, Alonzo L. Hamby provides a richly perceptive biography, giving us the best look yet at who Truman was, how he changed, and why he triumphed.

About this title

About the Author:

About the Author:
Alonzo L. Hamby is Professor of History at Ohio University. His books include Liberalism and its Challengers, The Imperial Years, and Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism.

From Library Journal:

Following David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative Truman (LJ 6/1/92) and Robert Ferrell's scholarly Harry S Truman: A Life (LJ 12/94), is there need for another comprehensive Truman biography? Yes, and noted Truman historian Hamby provides it. Unlike McCullough, Hamby offers an analytical model for viewing Truman, a liberal president serving in increasingly conservative times. Current fascination with Truman, Hamby notes, has more to do with his typically middle-class struggle to achieve success than with what he actually accomplished as president. Truman, an honest politician operating in a corrupt political environment, was overly defensive about his family and his association with the Pendergast political syndicate of Missouri. Yet with the unraveling of the New Deal and World War II consensus, he was successful in mustering bipartisan support for his great foreign policy successes?the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine and, to a lesser extent, his progressive civil rights plank. This balanced assessment, although well written, lacks McCullough's narrative grace. Yet it presents a more dispassionate interpretation that will be welcomed by students of the presidency and public administration. Strongly recommended for large presidential studies and Truman collections.?Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0195124979
• ISBN 13: 9780195124972
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 784