I feel we have been lucky as a country to have great personalities as president at certain momentous times.

Systems are hugely important, but it’s good to not forget that personalities run these systems – well or poorly, depending often on the person in place. So we’ve been lucky at our most pivotal moments.

Washington at the beginning, a general who never was a dictator and happily left power. Lincoln, a country lawyer with common sense and the ability to evolve intellectually, as the country was about to dissolve. FDR with his charisma as capitalism collapsed on itself. And Truman as the Cold War picked up.

Of all the great and improbable stories in American history and politics, none feels more so than that of Harry Truman. A haberdasher, minor figure in a political machine, from Independence, MO, who was made vice president, then had the titan of the 20th Century die on him, and was thrown into a tumultuous time, won reelection, went to war to halt communism, protected those who needed help –George Marshall and black Americans. And never felt at home in DC.

It helped that he was a straight talker and a hard worker and had common sense and that this was before our modern media age. All this allowed him to weather this time and succeed, as I think he did.

I think he did the right thing by ending the WWII with the bomb. It would have lasted much longer otherwise. He desegregated the military, which is certainly one of the first early steps in the Civil Rights movement. He was right to fire MacArthur. He was wise to be the first president to visit Mexico, and there bowed and placed a wreath at the tomb of the Ninoes Heroes, as cadets cried. His defeat of Dewey was an amazing example of what simply hard work will achieve. And he retired to Independence with almost no money, though with a nice book contract that he hated writing.

McCullough’s book on his life is, as always, well written, gripping and deeply researched – the kind of history we need more of. I also loved his book on John Adams, for whom I have a deep respect now, far deeper than for Thomas Jefferson.

What’s also terrific about it is the view it offers of American politics at the time – brutal always, but given to compromise and debate. Though it also shows that the urge for power will push some to do anything – as the Republicans did by tolerating Joe McCarthy and his attacks on the State Department and one America’s greatest statesmen, George Marshall.

Amid out current campaign, the book feels refreshing, nostalgic, maybe also a little sad, given where we are at the moment.

What an incredible biography! I know that the thought of reading a one thousand page book can be intimidating to many but this is one that is worth it. McCullough does a fantastic job of analyzing both the great and the small while maintaining an ease of reading that is necessary for causal readers to remain engaged and enjoying the book. Truman led an extraordinary life during a period of American history that experienced more change than any other. Born in a 19th century farming town to leading the greatest nation in the of the atomic bomb. Truman is a lesson in the American Spirit, where the will to work hard and to remain faithful to your own can produce a life with amazing outcomes. Truman is a testament to perseverance and humility, something that is lacking in our world today. While I don't agree with Truman on everything, I think he had way too much faith in the government's ability to solve the nation's problems, he remains a role model worth knowing, learning from, and emulating. Definitely one of the best presidential biographies out there.

This was informative, well-written, and easy to read. It has one huge flaw though and that's the fact that McCullough completely romanticizes Truman. This is a biography of all the good things Truman did and the good qualities he possessed, of which there were many, but McCullough ensures this can't be a truly comprehensive biography because he ignores Truman's bad decisions and his character flaws. In that sense, you aren't getting a true account of history; you're getting a one-sided account. In his biography Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts tells readers each time there are opposing accounts of Napoleon's actions, telling you both the good and bad account, and then he tells you, based on a total review of historic accounts, which is most likely. Roberts is completely comprehensive and impartial in his account of Napoleon. The result is a masterful biography, and it's exactly what is missing here.

Epic in size and scope, I could do nothing less than give five stars to Truman, the man, the president, and the book. Like McCullough’s John Adams, the author has weaved together a biography like few others, utilizing mountains of papers both personal and political to re-create the life of a truly unique president. Beyond cradle-to-grave, Truman begins in frontier times when Kentucky was still the West, decades before the birth of Harry’s father. Then it stretches past his life to unfold his legacy as it is most often seen today, and ends with the passing of Bess in very recent times.

I was put off by neither the lengthy family background nor the fast-paced final chapter, for knowing what made the man means knowing what made the people who made the man, and by the end of a biography I presumably know all about his character and can do without reading every last fact of his declining years (although I also think there were plenty of juicy details here).

Most challenging to read through were Harry’s puzzling years ascending the political career ladder under the wing of Tom Pendergast, and the painstaking work of the Truman Committee in the Senate. But it all builds up to the much-anticipated entry into the White House, the unbelievable reelection, and the enormous decisions Truman faced in a world that changed dramatically with World War II.

I particularly enjoyed reading everything about the Truman Presidential Library and Harry’s time in the building—imagine calling for its hours and speaking to ‘the old man himself’!—having been there several times myself. I could picture his view from his office there, into a then-graveless courtyard where his physical and spiritual presence remain today.

While Harry held onto some old-fashioned ideas and epithets throughout his life, he remains one of my favorite presidents, and I felt Truman more than did justice to the earliest of the two former presidents that were still alive when I was born.

"We cannot know what verdict history will pronounce upon [the Truman record], but we can make a pretty good guess. It will perhaps record the curious paradox that a man charged with being “soft" on communism has done more than any other leader in the western world, with the exception of Churchill, to contain communism; that a man charged with mediocrity has launched a whole series of far sighted plans for world reconstruction; that a man accused of being an enemy to private enterprise has been head of the Government during the greatest period of prosperity for private enterprise; that a man accused of betraying the New Deal has fought one Congress after another for progressive legislation."
—Henry Steele Commager, Look Magazine 1952

From his humble beginnings in Missouri, to his service in the artillery in WWI, to his political roles, this is an excellent biography. Harry S. Truman served as the 33rd president of the United States, following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945. He was added to the election ticket through some clever back-room politicking (not his initiative, however), and was ill-prepared to step into the role as president (because Roosevelt kept him at arms-length). But he more than rose to the occasion, and his presidency was filled with momentous events: the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan and the end of WWII; the formation of both the United Nations and NATO; the beginning of the Cold War; the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift; the official recognition of Israel; the Korean War. Although he came across as a simple and down-to-earth person, he was highly intelligent and was a master politician simply because he could honestly relate to common people. In his re-election in 1948 he was given virtually no chance by all newspapers and pollsters, and yet he won (you've probably seen the picture of a smiling Truman holding up the newspaper with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman").

This was an excellent read - and that I hope for our sake that we still have leaders of his caliber and integrity today. The book has sat unread on my shelf for 10-15 years, simply because of how long it is. But I decided this would be the year I'd read it, and I'm very glad I did. An excellent biography.

Truman is David McCullough's cradle-to-grave account of the life and career of Harry S. Truman, a president who, despite being overshadowed by the likes of Washington, Lincoln and FDR in collective historical memory, arguably had an even greater impact on the world than those more vaunted leaders. Certainly, one gets the impression from McCullough's hefty tome that Truman was one of the more courageous men to assume the presidency, trusting his instincts and sense of honour as he navigated the grim conclusion of World War II, then clung brilliantly to power in the face of Thomas E. Dewey's challenge -- an election campaign about which McCullough writes brilliantly. Indeed, Truman tells you just about everything you might want to know about its subject, although McCullough at times shies away from the aspects of Truman's character that he'd evidently rather not know. I didn't really buy McCullough's insistence that Truman, who was given to using racist language in his correspondence, had issues with the Civil Rights Movement simply because he fell for J. Edgar Hoover's "communism" bugaboo, and especially not after McCullough had already documented Truman's contempt for Joseph McCarthy and his fellow red scare witchfinders. Despite this, McCullough doesn't go all-in on the whitewashing of his subject like lesser biographers might have. Ultimately, Truman emerges as a credible, essential biography of one of America's greatest leaders.

It's been a little while since I read a book by Mr. McCullough and, somehow, I had forgotten what a great storyteller he is. In his largest biography, Mr. McCullough brings you closer to mirroring his subject than any other writer I have yet read. His subject: Harry S. Truman, America's greatest common-man president. Starting with the tale of his grandparents' trials in mid-19th century Missouri, Truman covers a vast timeline in a masterful way. Mr. McCullough's choice of tales always adds color to what can also easily be told in a very dry, textbook manner. And when he gets into Truman's life proper, you will not be disappointed. Nearly everything of Truman's life, career, and presidency is covered and in style and words that will make the near 1,000 page narrative seem half that length (that and the fact that, like all of his books, Mr. McCullough uses rather large print). In nearly every way, this is a near-perfect presidential biography. Of course, I say nearly because there were two things that were left out that I was rather shocked were: the National Security Act of 1947 and the NATO treaty. Mr. McCullough doesn't give any analysis of the former, just noting that Truman pushed for it and it happened. The latter is given a 1-2 page summary of its coming about, but nothing a reader will find insightful. These two acts changed the distribution and use of military power in Washington and in the world and the fact that they are, essentially, left out is stunning for a historian and biographer of Mr. McCullough's caliber. Still, this oversight doesn't change my 5-star rating one bit and every fan of Truman and/or of Mr. McCullough should pick this up.

One of the more underrated presidents. Truman was one of our more impactful presidents, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. He made the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan, launched the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, helped establish Israel, launched the Berlin Airlift, desegregated the U.S. military, established NATO, founded the United Nations, and led the U.S. into the Korean War. He was an incredible example of simple midwestern hard work and integrity. The book is long. I’d probably recommend Chernow’s book on Grant (another underrated president) if you’re choosing between the two.

David McCullough's work has almost everything one can wish for in a biography. After reading it, I feel as if I got to know Harry Truman personally. It is a rather voluminous book, covering Truman's childhood, early life, and extensive political career, but it is so gripping and readable you won't be able to put it down.

As McCullough acknowledges, the writing of his outstanding work had been significantly facilitated by Truman himself: the President poured himself out on paper "with vigor and candor" all his adult life, and made it possible for the author, through the great body of surviving letters, diaries, private memoranda, and autobiographical sketches, to go below the surface, to know what he felt, what he wanted, his worries, his anger, the exceptional and the commonplace details of his days.

Grown up in a family of farmers in Missouri, the self-educated Truman, who never attended college, had an almost ravenous interest in history. In his memoirs, he reports that as a boy he indulged in “endless reading of history,” a passion he continued as an adult. “I wanted to know what caused the successes or the failures of all the famous leaders of history.” He read Plutarch’s Lives, spent time on Abbott’s biographies of famous men, explored accounts of ancient Egypt, the Mesopotamian civilizations, Greece and Rome, ruminated on cultures of the Orient, read widely about modern nations, and tracked the drama of America’s birth and growth. His education gave him a solid grounding in his early years. But his need to earn a living soon overshadowed his academic pursuits – a career in business intervened. When he was thirty-three, however, and not having enjoyed great success, he quit his commercial work and went to France to fight in the World War I; he rose to the rank of captain. According to McCullough, that extraordinary and trying experience proved to him that he had leadership abilities.

The most captivating part of the book, of course, begins with his miraculous election to the US Senate, which was achieved with the help of the political machine of Tom Pendergast (T.J.), the saloonkeeper whose power was "greater than that of any political boss in the country". There, on Capitol Hill, we gain the most fascinating insight into Truman's personality. While despised by many senators for being "a guy . . . sent up [to Washington] by gangsters", he persevered to prove his diligence: most mornings, he turned up at his office so early – about seven – and so in advance of everyone else in the building that it was decided he should have his own passkey, reportedly the first ever issued to a senator. Unlike most senators, Truman was no orator and made no brilliant speeches (He dared to propose his first bill after whole four months in the Senate.), but he demonstrated a strong desire to learn; he sat in the back row of the top-heavy Democratic side of the Senate at every session, listening, absorbing, learning. Later, in 1941, the gained experience combined with his straightforward personality contributed to the great success of the Truman Committee that was established to investigate all activities involving national defense. It is during the Committee's hearings that warm-hearted, easygoing Truman's persistence and toughness emerged, showing a side most people didn't know existed.

McCullough devotes a substantial part of the biography to Harry Truman's political campaigns. Although they are maybe too detailed for my taste, they provide valuable insight into how Truman inexhaustible energy and determination. It was interesting to read about the backstairs schemes during his run for Vice President, but I won't spoil this chapter for you; it is enough to say that Roosevelt appears as impossible to decipher as ever, and this leads to some curious results...

To say that Truman was prepared for the presidency would be an overstatement. In his twelve-week tenure as Roosevelt’s second in command, he had remained a complete outsider. By the time when, on April 12, 1945, FDR died, Truman had seen the president officially only eight times. Roosevelt had fully excluded him from his decision-making process regarding foreign affairs, this denying his green successor the needed opportunity to gain experience. While the new president wasn't as as naïve a man as some Americans suspected, he was a newbie in foreign affairs, and committed diplomatic blunders. (As the wife of Robert A. Taft, the conservative senator from Ohio, had remarked, "To err is Truman.") One of the most conspicuous was the harsh tone he adopted during a meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov; Molotov, visibly offended, took the President's behavior for a confirmation that the years of cooperation between the USSR and America had indeed ended, a perception that, in combination with other misconceptions and suspicions, would lead to the Cold War.
Highly challenging were the issues that Roosevelt had left Truman to untangle. For example, although the new President had been aware of the Manhattan Project since the time he headed the Truman Committee, he knew nothing of its purpose because Secretary of War Stimson had asked for permission not to reveal a secret that only four people in the world knew. One can only imagine what a bombshell revelation the possession by the USA of an atomic bomb, the most formidable weapon ever created, must have been for him.
Another issue was the Poland question. Since Poland was a nation with many emigrants to the States, Americans did not want it to be absorbed by the USSR, which had claimed it as a part of the proposed Soviet post-war security zone; because of public discontent, the issue turned into a political one. FDR, though, was more concerned with maintaining wartime solidarity, so he postponed the settlement of Poland's fate, thus making it the inexperienced Truman's problem, which he, exasperated by Molotov's obstinacy, handled rather undiplomatically.

McCullough's work has one drawback that has to be noted. He pays too little attention to Truman's decision-making process in regard to a number of key episodes, such as, for instance, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Well, the President was, indeed, silent in his journal on the fateful day he made the decision in Potsdam, and this is understandable. (Who wouldn't have been in his place?) But still... There is little information on the deterioration of Soviet-American relations and the Korean War. Truman's second term is also described primarily through his sensational campaign, a miraculous, unpredicted victory over the Republican, anti-Communist candidate Thomas E. Dewey, and through his subsequent search for a suitable Democratic candidate to success him in the White House and to continue his policy. (He tried recruiting General Dwight Eisenhower, the most popular man in the States at the time, but failed – Ike became the Republican Party's candidate instead.)

What is a really brilliantly depicted in McCullough's biography are Truman's personal relationships with his beloved wife Bess, their adored daughter Margaret, his mother, sister Mary Jane, and cousins Ethel and Nellie Noland. Curious are also Truman's often inexplainable friendships and partnerships, such as that with the elegant, polished Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, whose place in the Cabinet was unrivaled. That Harry Truman of Missouri, product of the Pendergast machine, could possibly have anything in common with Dean Gooderham Acheson, "Groton ’11, Yale ’15, Harvard Law ’19," or feel at ease in such a partnership, struck many as almost ludicrous. At first glance, Acheson seemed to be everything the President despised, "the ultimate 'striped pants boy.'" Yet, among the "clannish and snooty" members of the State Department, which – according to Truman – were extremely bright people who made tremendous college marks but who had had very little association with actual people down to the ground, Acheson was doing a “whale of a job," and the President hoped he would never leave the government.

In my opinion, David McCullough has also done "a whale of a job." Despite the drawback I mentioned, this is a presidential biography at its finest. It creates a uniquely wholesome picture of Harry Truman and his administration; all characters, from minor to major, are coming to life under McCullough's pen. We are always at the President's side, at his highs and at his lows; we get to know his courage, determination, candor, and occasional mistakes. Furthermore, this masterly account handles an enormous amount of of material with such deftness that one can't help but be astonished. TRUMAN is a long, thoroughly absorbing work that deserves much more than five stars.

For some reason or another, I had to read this book in 3 days. It was like a full time job, considering it's about 3284293842034820384238 pages long. I did it though, and for about two months or so I was a motherfucking Harry Truman expert. Then I forgot almost everything.

Anyway, if you want seem like a history encyclopedia for a little while, take a three-day weekend and rip this bad boy open. Maybe you'll get laid.



(one word of caution: reading this gave me the temerity to say "mcarthur was a giant pussy" in history class, at which point i found out that the substitute that day had served under mcarthur. apparently that's a sensitive subject. be careful)

There's a reason that McCullough is one of my favorite historians. He has an amazing ability to bring historical figures to life, and that was clearly seen all throughout this fantastic biography on Truman. McCullough does tend to be biased toward Truman during different parts of his life, but McCullough's admiration of Truman is also what makes this book enjoyable since it helps the reader to care about him. The book would be much less interesting if it was clear on each page that McCullough disliked the guy. So while there's a fair critique to be made that there's some bias in this book, I also didn't really mind its presence.

Taken as a whole, this book taught me a lot more about the guy and caused me to think more about the different decisions Truman made and the responsibilities he was thrust into. Great book!

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Very Good).

A good and complete biography of Truman. David McCullough describes well the political events surrounding the era and his climb to power – which was gradual but well earned. Truman was only two years younger than Roosevelt but in far better health. He was a vastly different person more prone to indiscretions. Even so he survived well in a turbulent era - the end of World War II, taking the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, the commencement of the Cold War, the creation of the state of Israel (where he did waffle) and the Korean War. Truman importantly promoted the U.N.

He was not afraid to take decisions, but he could be petulant as in writing to the Washington Post when they dared to criticize his daughter’s musical performance at a concert (this was something Roosevelt would never have done).

I felt the author devoted too many pages to the 1948 campaign (over 60 pages). Very little was said about Truman’s efforts to desegregate the armed forces (how much opposition did this receive?) Also I am somewhat perplexed about Truman’s marriage to his wife Bess. He did marry quite late – at 35 – which is unusual in that era. Bess did not spend that much time with him in Washington during his Senate and Presidential years when he could have used the emotional support. Also they resided in her mother’s house when in Independence, Missouri. For a strong-willed individual Harry Truman seemed to be dominated by both his wife and mother-in-law.

His firing of Douglas MacArthur is well depicted as well as his increasing frustration with Joe McCarthy – where it could be said that it was beneath presidential dignity to deal with such a scoundrel. His friendship with his staff – Clark Clifford, Dean Acheson and the illustrious George Marshall is conveyed. His growing irritation with his successor Eisenhower is interesting.

A portrait of a warm and up-front person emerges – plus that of someone who could quickly grasp new situations and evaluate new personalities (with the exception of Josef Stalin – but he was not alone in this). He was expeditious to root out the “hangers on” of the Roosevelt administration, but did not lose site of the accomplishments of that era.