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Harry S. Truman: The American Presidents Series: The 33rd President, 1945-1953 (American Presidents (Times))

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Harry S. Truman's life story in a short, accessible biography. That's the premise of The American Presidents Series, and this is one of the most recent entrants in the stable. The late Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was the series editor. In his introduction to each book in this series, he says (Page xvi): "The men in the White House express the ideals and values, the frailties and the flaws, of the voters who send them there. It is altogether natural that we should want to know more about the virtues and the vices of the fellows we have elected to govern us. As we know more about them, we will know more about themselves."

The book begins by noting that, traditionally, the 20th century presidents deemed to be great or near great include: Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. The "Preludes" section notes that (Page 1): "On the face of things, Truman's high standing is surprising. . . . Truman was notable for his ordinariness."

The book begins with his family background, his early years, his service in World War I, his early (failed) effort at a haberdashery business, and his decision to move into public life. The book well describes his moral dilemmas at one point: the corrupt Pendergast organization was willing to sponsor him for elective office. What would he do? Eschew the support of the machine? Or use its support and still try to stay clean? He did the latter and his political career began. By the way, to give a sense of The American Presidents' series, we come to see how and why FDR selected Truman as his Vice-Presidential partner by page 15!

Truman's time in the White House. . . . We see him reflecting on whether or not to use the atomic weaponry against Japan. We see him trying to adjust to the Post-World War II Cold War/Iron Curtain era. We see him trying to navigate between left and right in domestic politics, and sometimes seeming to drift. One intriguing line (Page 37): "And yet Truman was disinclined to confront the country with the emerging dangers he saw from Soviet aggression. . . ." This is a subtheme of the book, with the author, Robert Dallek, noting that on a number of occasions, Truman seemed to back off confronting difficult issues. It creates, in fact, a tension within this volume between the author commenting that Truman warranted his high rating by historians and then noting his occasional avoiding tough issues.

The story of his unexpected victory in 1948 over Thomas Dewey, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, and his rapidly deteriorating public approval. . . . It's all here, including his active post-presidential career.

A very nice brief introduction to Henry Truman. This book has motivated me to consider buying one of the larger biographies of the subject and exploring his life more deeply. . . .

Unfortunately, the reader, William Dufris, is apparently too young to have been aware of who was who in this book produced by Macmillan Audio. On disc one, the name of Chiang Kai-Shek (and then Mrs. Chiang Kai-Shek) is repeatedly pronounced as Chey-ang...(as in Chey-enne). On disc two, one finds David Lilienthal's name turned into Liliental, followed by Bernard Baruch, pronounced as Baroosh each time. After that, I couldn't continue -- the audio version was ruined for me.

I am surprised that no one at Macmillan Audiobook cared enough about the production of Dallek's book to either encourage the use of a name pronunciation dictionary for someone apparently too young to remember those major people on the world scene, or didn't check to see if Mr. Dufris knew what he was doing before letting him go on with the reading. As a commercial audiobook firm, Macmillan has fallen down on its responsibility to the listening public.

Professor Robert Dallek's HARRY S. TRUMAN is an illuminating and exhilarating read both for those deeply steeped in the Truman story and for those to whom Truman is a little-known figure. Dallek employs politics as the underlying theme that traces both Truman's career and the volatility of an American public that, not infrequently, can swerve far off the course of common sense and of appreciation for the real-world complexities of both domestic change and international vital interests. Dallek's succinct essay provides me valuable insights into the current Tea Party aberration.

Biographer Dallek, who has exhibited keen insights into the personalities and politics of FDR, Nixon, JFK, and LBJ, and Reagan, brings similar acumen to assessing Truman-- the man, the politician, and the president. As a teenager, I stayed up late watching the 1948 election in which Truman confounded the professional pollsters. I am familiar with many of the two dozen books upon which Dallek depends for many of his core facts and anecdotes, including McCullough's TRUMAN, Hamby's MAN OF THE PEOPLE: A LIFE OF HARRY S. TRUMAN, George H. Gallup's THE GALLUP POLL, 1935-1971, and Merle Miller's PLAIN SPEAKING: AN ORAL BIOGRAPHY OF HARRY S. TRUMAN.

I have taught Truman in a college course for nearly twenty years. I am astonished by how accurately Dallek, in 153 pages, synthesizes many complex events. I feel humbled at how often Dallek provides a succinct factual and political insight that had escaped me in my 60+ years of learning about Truman. Most important, Dallek provides a comprehensive, credible assessment of a man and president who, too frequently, has been misunderstood and, years ago, trivialized.

Truman, during his initial decades, seemed a most unlikely person ever to earn a Time cover story, much less the American presidency. His early adult years could be considered a failure, except for his distinguished WW I military service. His love of history, biography, and politics commenced at an early age. His association with Tom Pendergast obliged him to engage in distasteful patronage, while maintaining his personal financial integrity. His improbable ascent from being `Pendergast's boy' in the U. S. Senate to the White House came from his political loyalty, his conscientious work ethic that, among other things, saved the U. S. billions in military contract waste, and from his own personal integrity.

As Dallek illustrates, Truman was no saint, except when it came to personal financial scrupulousness and to women--his wife and mother in law seemed as much comfort to him as was Mary to Abraham Lincoln. Truman often felt frustration. At times he confined this to his diary or to letters that he wrote and then never mailed (his strong hatreds included General McArthur and Richard Nixon). On occasion, when he expressed this anger publicly (his letter to the music critique who panned his daughter's singing is a classic example), Truman diminished his stature and effectiveness.

From an early age, Truman appreciated the nature of politics. During a troublesome period of his presidency, he wrote his daughter that an effective president needed to be "a liar" and a "double-crosser." [Were these qualities he had learned from observing FDR in action?] What comes through clearly in Dallek's account is Truman's basic decency. Despite his many downs and ups, Truman always had a capacity swiftly to get back on track. He also was a quick learner, as evidenced from how he handled his presidency, after the initial freshman months.

Dallek describes several of Truman's core visions. From the outset of his presidency, he sought to rejuvenate the New Deal program. Then, and after the 1948 election, he was stymied both by the mood of the country and by the conservatism of Congress. Several of his boldest moods were a mixture of politics and personal beliefs: the recognition of Israel; his fight against John L. Lewis and his veto of the Taft-Hartley bill, and his Executive Order desegregating the military.

Since Gallup Polls commenced in 1935, no president, including Nixon, has so consistently scored as low as Truman during office. Truman departure from the White House in 1953 was lamented by few. In a brief epilogue, Dallek describes why, nearly sixty years later, Truman is ranked among America's near-great presidents. His Cold War actions, in retrospect, are now generally applauded. Especially after Watergate, his personal integrity became warmly applauded. His concerns for the average American were addressed in subsequent legislation, from LBJ and, most recently, Obama. He was faced with some of the most vexing domestic and international problems that ever confronted an American president. Most historians now agree that Harry `The Buck Stops Here' Truman served his country uncommonly well.

HARRY S. TRUMAN is part of The American Presidents series, initially edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and now by Sean Wilentz. So far I have only read one other book in this series: Charles Peters' LYNDON B. JOHNSON, which I also found superb (see my Amazon review).

Robert Dallek is a biographer of books on Lyndon B Johnson and John F Kennedy. In his latest offering he turns his attention to Harry S Truman.

Truman was in the unenviable position of taking the US Presidency in 1945 after the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt was almost universally loved and one of the most respected men in the world and Truman was never going to live up to the expectations that Roosevelt had set.

This is an interesting book as it felt like Dallek wasn't trying that hard to write a good and interesting book. He makes the observation that Truman should be regarded as one of the great Presidents but doesn't do much to really back this claim up except to give a sometimes unflattering portrait of the man and his woeful approval rating.

The book is very short for one of Dallek's biographies as LBJ was 396 pages and JFK was 838 pages long yet Truman was 184 pages. One of the grest Presidents would deserve more than this.

My thoughts are that Truman was an average leader who didn't seem to get the respect of the public and really came off as ordinary in this biography. Seemed to be a nice man but not a great leader.

Worth a read if you want a snapshot biography of Truman but other than that, I would be looking at some other more extensive biography if you want to know more about him.

It goes without saying that the best biography of Harry Truman is the one by David McCullough. However Robert Dallek does a good job of creating an interesting brief bio of Truman that focuses almost exclusively on his presidency. While this is a very interesting aspect of Truman's life and as would be the case in any presidential biography of key importance, Dallek doesn't do what other authors have done in this series and try to paint a portrait of the person who sat in the chair.

While he makes the argument that Truman was a near great president very little attention is given to what made him the man he was. Much attention is given to Truman's modest upbringing yet few details are provided. There is the famous line about Truman which goes, he is the most complex simple man who ever lived and Dallek does a good job in capturing that aspect. Still I would have enjoyed reading more about Truman the man and how that helped to shape Truman the president. Still, I recommend this book to anyone interested in one of our most fascinating presidents!

Dallek summarizes the Presidency of Give Them Hell Harry Truman. Much has been written about this man, but unlike many who have held the office of President of the United States, Harry Truman was indeed one of the middle class. He was raised and worked on a farm, owned and worked a retail hat shop, and become a judge in middle life. Harry was also loyal to his friends, regardless of whether they were machine politicians. There are many things to show how Truman was truly a member of the population who voted for him. When he assumed the Presidential office, he did his best and achieved many things. His leadership helped America confront the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Dallek does a nice job with this short summary of Truman's leadership. The intro started off slow, but this was a nice read on a truly great man.

The title is enough to give one pause. With it, the publisher makes the typical mistake of putting a period after the middle initial "S", which in fact stood for nothing. Though trivial, it is the kind of thing that can make informed readers wonder just how knowledgeable the author is about his subject. Fortunately once they get past the cover they will find themselves in more capable hands. An award-winning presidential historian and biographer, Robert Dallek uses his considerable knowledge and insight to inform this study of Harry Truman.

In many ways an unlikely occupant of the office, Truman's career was one of dogged determination in a series of failed jobs and minor offices. Even his first term as a United States senator was less than noteworthy, and it was not until he had won reelection and achieved prominence as the head of a special committee designed to root out corruption and waste in military appropriations that he emerged as a vice presidential prospect in the 1944 presidential campaign - a critical decision given Franklin Roosevelt's failing health.

Though Truman was selected to serve as vice president to a terminally ill man, Dallek stresses the lack of preparation for his succession. Thrust into office by Roosevelt's sudden death, the new president found himself facing enormous challenges involving the ongoing war and the even thornier ones of peace. While generally sympathetic to Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan, Dallek judges his plummeting support in the months that followed as the result of his attempts to be all things to all people, and that it was not until Truman decided to be his own man that he enjoyed greater success as president.

Dallek judges the two years that followed as Truman's most successful as president, as he made key decisions involving the Cold War, the recognition of Israel, and civil rights. He fought against the Republican-dominated 80th Congress, and used their opposition to his domestic agenda as a launching pad for his victory over Thomas Dewey in the 1948 election. Yet Truman was unable to capitalize on his unexpected triumph, as he faced anticommunist hysteria, charges of corruption by members of his administration, and an intractable war in Korea, all of which led to his decision to abandon a run for another term in 1952.

Concise and informative, Dallek's book is an excellent introduction to Truman and his presidency. Though lacking original research, the author infuses his narrative with perceptiveness borne of his extensive historical expertise, one that has much to offer readers familiar with the 33rd president. The result is a book that is a good starting point for anyone interested in learning about the man from Missouri and how he led the nation through tumultuous times.