Truman Paperback – Illustrated, 21 Jun. 2004

I knew far too little of Truman before listening to and reading David McCullough’s fine biography of him (on Audible and Kindle, respectively). All I could say about him was that Truman was a president to admire, one who’d won himself an enviable reputation. He was also a man of honesty and principle, prepared to take difficult decisions and accept responsibility for them.This biography confirms the truth of those beliefs. But it does far more than that. It reveals Truman not just in his successes but in his failures, and there were many of them. Most notably, he spent many years as a farmer, with mixed results, and later attempted to set up a haberdashery shop, where he went broke. Perhaps more worrying still, he worked closely for many years with political bosses in his native Missouri, some of whom were found to be deeply corrupt.Ironically, it was the dubious associations that led to his successes. Though he worked with some questionable individuals, it’s clear that he never engaged in any murky activities of his own. He maintained personal integrity in poisonous circumstances. But the Missouri bosses were his springboard into politics.He was also a leader of men. Despite his poor eyesight and his lack of any previous military experience, he became an artillery captain during the First World War, distinguishing himself both by his personal courage and by his ability to forge men into a highly-efficient unit. He pulled off that achievement with a disparate group of men who were not soldiers but civilians in uniform. As well as a leader he was, truly, a fighter.That was the quality that most marked his political career. He showed it most clearly at two key times: when he stood for re-election to the Senate in 1940 and when he ran for President in his own right in 1948 (he was elected Vice President in 1944 with Roosevelt, and inherited the presidency when the latter died).On both those occasions he showed a tireless ability to campaign even when all around him were telling him he had no chance of winning. He covered huge distances speaking to crowds and individuals at every opportunity. Above all, he established a personal bond with thousands, who passed the message on to many times that number of others.Against the odds, he won both those elections, astounding friend and adversary alike.I found another quality of his just as striking: his ability to build consensus. Even after he had taken a decision, for instance to build a Hydrogen bomb, he would allow his subordinates to debate the issue, leading many of the discussions himself. Eventually, they would come around to the view that he had already adopted, at which point he put it into application knowing that his team was behind him.Nor did he ever duck responsibility for the choices he made. We might not agree with his decision to build a Hydrogen bomb, or to use the Atom bomb against Japan, or to involve the US in the Korean War. It’s hard, however, not to admire the resolution with which he took those decisions, knowing that they were his responsibility and his alone, and accepting that criticism for the consequences had to be directed at him.Told with a great deal of humour and in the clear and gripping language which always marks David McCullough’s work, this biography brings out all these aspects of the man. That provides us with a work that is a pleasure to read (or listen to) full of vital insights into a remarkable personality.

This is probably one of the best biographies I have ever read. McCullough is a fantastic writer and I feel I really got to know who Truman was and I enjoyed spending time with him, reading about his life. As the book came to a close, I can honestly say that I was sad to see him go. It reads quickly, you hardly notice how long it is. However, this is not a political biography but rather a personal one. We get to know Truman the man. If you are looking for a political history of Truman's presidency this isn't it.Truman was definitely one of America's greatest Presidents and he made some of the most momentous decisions, good and not so good, of the twentieth century. He was on the one hand, an honest, hard working American trying to do the right thing, yet was the product of a political machine, a system he believed in. Although he was always faithful to his friends, many of them were of dubious character. But I think that's what made him human. He tried to do what he always thought was best, what he believed in, even if it was not popular. For that you have to respect him, even if you disagree with his decisions. Five stars is not enough for this wonderful book!

This is one of the most readable and fascinating biographies ever written--a story of how an ordinary American rose to great heights. But one feels it isn't quite the whole story. I don't think McCullough gets to the heart of Truman's peculiar relationship with Tom Pendergast. Although Truman clearly was not corrupt, he cannot possibly been so naive as to be ignorant of the workings of the Democrat's big city machines. When Truman was in control of awarding the contracts for paving the roads of Jackson county, he put a stop to blatant cheating by contractors who laid a mere 'pie crust' of concrete that quickly broke up. But since Tom Pendergast owned the local ready-mix concrete company, Truman's honesty meant big profits for him. McCullough doesn't seem to have made this connection, but I would be very surprised if Truman didn't.McCullough's lack of economic acumen would be fatal if this were history rather than biography, but it still leaves some troubling gaps. Although he rightly eschews analysing the New Deal (or Truman's Fair Deal), which is a subject in itself, we are left none the wiser as to how the United States pulled out of the post-war slump so quickly--nor are we told whether the Truman administration's measures contributed to this recovery. We are not even given the the broad outlines of the Marshall Plan.Still, these are quibbles, for after all, this is a biography, and a first-rate one at that. Sympathetic as it is, it stops well short of being a hagiography. Nonetheless, it certainly has contributed to the growing consensus that Truman was the last great American President.

It’s a good personal biography but a bit lacking in political context. Respectful of his subject but aware of his darker side such as his use of the n-word - although he desegregated the US forces. The account of the day FDR died is a fine melodrama.