Truman - Hardcover

Jenkins, Roy

3.38

39 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002175843 ISBN 13: 9780002175845

Publisher: Collins, 1986

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

In his time, Harry S. Truman was one of the most under-rated presidents of the twentieth century. Succeeding the charismatic Roosevelt, he was often seen as an uninspiring leader, a poor diplomat and a fumbling politician. He was the first man to authorise the use of nuclear weapons, and was in office at the time when the multiplicity of hopes which arose at the end of the Second World War were inevitably disappointed. Nothing could be further from Roy Jenkins' view of him. This is the first biography of Truman to be written by an author with anything approaching the subject's own range of political experience, and Roy Jenkins brings to this book a quality of appreciation of Truman's political skills which has not been seen before. It is also the first biography to be written by a British author, giving it a new objectivity on the international affairs which occupied so much of Truman's presidency and by which he must be judged.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, Jenkins (1920- 2003) served in several major posts in Harold Wilson's First Government and as Home Secretary from 1965-1967. In 1987, Jenkins was elected to succeed Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the University of Oxford following the latter's death, a position he held until his death. Jenkins grew to political maturity during the twilight of a great age of British parliamentary democracy. As much as Churchill, though in quite a different way, Jenkins has been from the cradle a creature of the system that nurtured Palmerston and Disraeli, Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George.

From Library Journal:

A co-founder of Great Britain's centrist Social Democratic party, and biographer of several British political leaders, Jenkins shows with this concise life of Harry Truman that he knows about American politics as well. He has written an admiring, while not uncritical, study, with emphasis upon Truman's public career. Based upon a handful of well-known sources, the book offers little that is new in the way of research or interpretation. What it does offer is an exceptionally fine, entertaining writing style and a British viewpoint on events, such as Jenkins's underlining of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin's role in the success of the Marshall Plan. Too slight to interest scholars, Truman is an optional choice for public and undergraduate libraries. Robert F. Nardini, M.L.S., Concord, N . H .
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.