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Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman
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.
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.
800 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 22, 2016
https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2016...
“Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman” is Alonzo Hamby’s biography of the 33rd president. Hamby is a historian, an expert on Harry Truman and distinguished professor of history emeritus at Ohio University. His most recent book, “Man of Destiny: FDR and the Making of the American Century” was published last year.
This biography of Truman is well-paced with nearly half of the book’s 641 pages devoted to his pre-presidency and the remainder focused on his presidency and two-decade retirement. It is the product of meticulous research, a thorough understanding of Truman and deep insight into his era.
Published three years after David McCullough’s bestselling classic, “Truman,” Hamby’s biography is undoubtedly meritorious. But where McCullough’s narrative is consistently descriptive and intensely engaging, Hamby’s style is more often that of a sober, analytically-oriented history professor. McCullough places the reader at the scene of the action; Hamby delivers a serious and erudite lecture filled with penetrating historical insight.
Some readers will fault Hamby for covering his subject’s early life too quickly – Truman’s first few decades are covered at the rate of about a page per year. And anyone seeking to understand the mature Harry Truman away from politics will find comparatively little focus on his personal life.
Pervading the narrative is a sense of scholarly detachment which provides the impression that Truman’s actions are being carefully judged…but without any sense of literary warmth or intimacy. And as Truman first enters Missouri politics with support of a local political boss, the book becomes so detailed that all but the most patient and devoted of readers risks losing the forest for the trees.
On the other hand, Hamby does an excellent job dissecting many of Truman’s personal relationships – particularly with his family members. And he does a far more skillful job explaining the inner-workings of Kansas City’s Pendergast family political “machine” – an early and consistent political sponsor of Truman – than I’ve seen anywhere else.
The chapter covering Truman’s service as the leader of an artillery battery in World War I is among the best descriptions of his military service I’ve read. And the final chapter of the book (bluntly titled “Who He Was, What He Did, and Why We Care”) provides the most thoughtful analysis of Truman and his legacy that I’ve encountered.
Overall, Alonzo Hamby’s biography of Harry Truman fails to provide a consistently exciting or interesting reading experience, but will leave committed members of its audience remarkably well-informed. Readers partial to a more dynamic literary style will find this biography too clinical and antiseptic, but budding historians and serious students of Truman will revel in the political detail and insight it reveals.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
“Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman” is Alonzo Hamby’s biography of the 33rd president. Hamby is a historian, an expert on Harry Truman and distinguished professor of history emeritus at Ohio University. His most recent book, “Man of Destiny: FDR and the Making of the American Century” was published last year.
This biography of Truman is well-paced with nearly half of the book’s 641 pages devoted to his pre-presidency and the remainder focused on his presidency and two-decade retirement. It is the product of meticulous research, a thorough understanding of Truman and deep insight into his era.
Published three years after David McCullough’s bestselling classic, “Truman,” Hamby’s biography is undoubtedly meritorious. But where McCullough’s narrative is consistently descriptive and intensely engaging, Hamby’s style is more often that of a sober, analytically-oriented history professor. McCullough places the reader at the scene of the action; Hamby delivers a serious and erudite lecture filled with penetrating historical insight.
Some readers will fault Hamby for covering his subject’s early life too quickly – Truman’s first few decades are covered at the rate of about a page per year. And anyone seeking to understand the mature Harry Truman away from politics will find comparatively little focus on his personal life.
Pervading the narrative is a sense of scholarly detachment which provides the impression that Truman’s actions are being carefully judged…but without any sense of literary warmth or intimacy. And as Truman first enters Missouri politics with support of a local political boss, the book becomes so detailed that all but the most patient and devoted of readers risks losing the forest for the trees.
On the other hand, Hamby does an excellent job dissecting many of Truman’s personal relationships – particularly with his family members. And he does a far more skillful job explaining the inner-workings of Kansas City’s Pendergast family political “machine” – an early and consistent political sponsor of Truman – than I’ve seen anywhere else.
The chapter covering Truman’s service as the leader of an artillery battery in World War I is among the best descriptions of his military service I’ve read. And the final chapter of the book (bluntly titled “Who He Was, What He Did, and Why We Care”) provides the most thoughtful analysis of Truman and his legacy that I’ve encountered.
Overall, Alonzo Hamby’s biography of Harry Truman fails to provide a consistently exciting or interesting reading experience, but will leave committed members of its audience remarkably well-informed. Readers partial to a more dynamic literary style will find this biography too clinical and antiseptic, but budding historians and serious students of Truman will revel in the political detail and insight it reveals.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
April 17, 2011
Very comprehensive biography of Truman from his earliest days, through his career in politics and the presidency, to the end of his life. At over 600 pages, this book is probably too detailed for the average reader, but is well worth-while for the Truman enthusiast. The author does a good job of presenting facts and makes his subject come alive. While sympathetic, the biography does not gloss over Truman's faults. The book also illuminates much about the domestic and foreign politics of the period.
February 5, 2019
This biography, along with that of David McCullough, is probably the standard works on Truman. The book takes him through his early life and the influence of his family and growing up on a farm. His parents instilled in him a strong work ethic and from his mom a love of reading history and playing the piano. Never well off, he wasn’t able to attend college but read voraciously. He began to find his niche in life when he joined the National Guard and served in WWI. Upon his return he entered into a haberdashery store with a friend. The business failed and decided to enter politics. With the help of the Pendergast machine, he was elected a county commissioner. Here he learned the rudiments of government. His association with Pendergast was a hindrance to him for the ratification his political career.
In 1940, Truman ran for the Senate and won. He distinguished himself there with hard work and his chairmanship of a committee looking into war production industry. In 1944 he was tabbed to be the running mate for FDR. Upon the death of FDR, he became president. The book then details the problems that he faced as president. Kept in the dark by FDR, he assumed office with no background on major issues. He had to deal with the atomic bomb, the Potsdam conference, the formation of the UN, the recovery of Europe and the return of the American economy to peacetime footing. Through programs such as the Marshall Plan, aid to Greece and Turkey he maintained a strong foreign policy. At home he oversaw a transition to a peacetime economy, made inroads in civil rights and set up civilian control of atomic energy.
Against all the odds he won a second term where the issues got tougher. The conflict with Stalin in Berlin and Eastern Europe, the rise of McCarthyism, the war in Korea with the conflict with MacArthur, charges of corruption, all made his second term tumultuous. He left office with a dismal approval rating, but his stature has grown over the years. This is a very good biography with insightful analysis of the times and Truman’s place in it.
In 1940, Truman ran for the Senate and won. He distinguished himself there with hard work and his chairmanship of a committee looking into war production industry. In 1944 he was tabbed to be the running mate for FDR. Upon the death of FDR, he became president. The book then details the problems that he faced as president. Kept in the dark by FDR, he assumed office with no background on major issues. He had to deal with the atomic bomb, the Potsdam conference, the formation of the UN, the recovery of Europe and the return of the American economy to peacetime footing. Through programs such as the Marshall Plan, aid to Greece and Turkey he maintained a strong foreign policy. At home he oversaw a transition to a peacetime economy, made inroads in civil rights and set up civilian control of atomic energy.
Against all the odds he won a second term where the issues got tougher. The conflict with Stalin in Berlin and Eastern Europe, the rise of McCarthyism, the war in Korea with the conflict with MacArthur, charges of corruption, all made his second term tumultuous. He left office with a dismal approval rating, but his stature has grown over the years. This is a very good biography with insightful analysis of the times and Truman’s place in it.
November 24, 2016
This was a very disappointing biography of a pivotal figure in American history. Hamby looks at Truman from a clinical perspective: what type of human being he was as far as personality characteristics; what type of politician he was locally in Kansas City, then state-wide in Missouri, and then world-wide as President. Thanks to this somewhat detached, scholarly perspective, Hamby never allows Truman to come to life. It is not that he fails to delve into actions that Truman took or words that he spoke, but that the reader fails to learn how things actually looked to Truman, what it was like to be in his shoes and make some of the gut-wrenching decisions that fate bestowed on him.
Hamby spends way, way too much time on Truman's early career and life. He goes into details about the Jackson County budget in the 1920s when Truman was a county judge. In fact, he spends as much time on that as he does on Truman's exciting 1948 "Whistle-stop" campaign for the presidency. Why? I doubt hardly anyone who has read this book did so to try to expand their knowledge of 1920s Kansas City budgets and politics.
The books picks up when Truman gets elected to the Senate, and Hamby does a decent job of describing the investigative work that Truman's committee did re: waste in war materiel and production. But when FDR dies, Hamby is unable to adequately re-create how Truman must have felt at that time. That is how I felt about the rest of the book. Hamby does not spend enough time talking about Truman's day-to-day experiences while being President. His wife, Bess, is relegated to being a minor character in the book once Truman goes to Washington as a Senator, but I don't think that was really the case in Truman's life.
Hamby sums up Truman's feud with Eisenhower in a few pages. Really, this topic could have and should have been explored much more. The final chapter, about Truman's retirement, is devoid of any of the excitement that David McCullough was able to write about in his own biography of Truman. Hamby, for example, fails to even mention Truman's long correspondence with Dean Acheson that lasted until Acheson's death in 1971. Indeed, several times throughout the book, I got the feeling that Hamby was writing this as a sort of counter to McCullough's work - which is still one of the best books that I have ever read. I am not sure what Hamby was trying to accomplish (he said that he thought McCullough and others had not quite captured Truman's story) but he certainly failed to write an entertaining and enjoyable book.
Grade: D
Hamby spends way, way too much time on Truman's early career and life. He goes into details about the Jackson County budget in the 1920s when Truman was a county judge. In fact, he spends as much time on that as he does on Truman's exciting 1948 "Whistle-stop" campaign for the presidency. Why? I doubt hardly anyone who has read this book did so to try to expand their knowledge of 1920s Kansas City budgets and politics.
The books picks up when Truman gets elected to the Senate, and Hamby does a decent job of describing the investigative work that Truman's committee did re: waste in war materiel and production. But when FDR dies, Hamby is unable to adequately re-create how Truman must have felt at that time. That is how I felt about the rest of the book. Hamby does not spend enough time talking about Truman's day-to-day experiences while being President. His wife, Bess, is relegated to being a minor character in the book once Truman goes to Washington as a Senator, but I don't think that was really the case in Truman's life.
Hamby sums up Truman's feud with Eisenhower in a few pages. Really, this topic could have and should have been explored much more. The final chapter, about Truman's retirement, is devoid of any of the excitement that David McCullough was able to write about in his own biography of Truman. Hamby, for example, fails to even mention Truman's long correspondence with Dean Acheson that lasted until Acheson's death in 1971. Indeed, several times throughout the book, I got the feeling that Hamby was writing this as a sort of counter to McCullough's work - which is still one of the best books that I have ever read. I am not sure what Hamby was trying to accomplish (he said that he thought McCullough and others had not quite captured Truman's story) but he certainly failed to write an entertaining and enjoyable book.
Grade: D
April 26, 2011
This book has some great detail and covers some aspects of Truman's early life that I was not really familiar with.
What's interesting is that Hamby manages to provide a balanced, nuanced picture of Truman, an President I greatly admire, rather than the kind of too-sweet hagiography indulged in by David McCullough.
What's interesting is that Hamby manages to provide a balanced, nuanced picture of Truman, an President I greatly admire, rather than the kind of too-sweet hagiography indulged in by David McCullough.
July 2, 2020
One of the best books I've read in a long while.
Hamby strikes an ideal balance not only between praise for and criticism of Truman, but between his personal life and his political life.
At once eminently readable and a work of serious historical scholarship, it is difficult to imagine a better biography of Truman.
Most importantly, perhaps, Hamby declines to eulogise Truman; instead, he praises and criticses him in equal measure, and yet still justifiably concludes that Truman, although deeply flawed, did far more good than he did bad.
I commend this book to anybody remotedly interested in its subject matter.
Hamby strikes an ideal balance not only between praise for and criticism of Truman, but between his personal life and his political life.
At once eminently readable and a work of serious historical scholarship, it is difficult to imagine a better biography of Truman.
Most importantly, perhaps, Hamby declines to eulogise Truman; instead, he praises and criticses him in equal measure, and yet still justifiably concludes that Truman, although deeply flawed, did far more good than he did bad.
I commend this book to anybody remotedly interested in its subject matter.
December 23, 2023
This was a chore to get through. I picked it up as it seemed to be thought as the most accurate and enlightening biography of Truman, and I can safely say that unless you are really into this stuff you should maybe pick another one. Make no mistake, the biography did its job extremely well: I feel like I have a really good understanding on what kind of a man Truman was, how he thought and why he made the decisions he did. I also learned a great deal about machine politics which was great. I just wish it would not have been such an exhausting read.
November 4, 2020
This is an excellent biography. Although Hamby does not write as well as David McCullough, he writes clearly and insightfully. However, having just read "Truman", I felt that I was not learning anything new in this book and decided that I did not want to spend hours of time re-reading what I had recently read. Perhaps I will pick this book up again in future when my memory of "Truman" has faded.
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October 19, 2008Good
January 29, 2009
A very large book on Truman. I was disappointed that there was less discussion on the Pendergast Machine.
October 6, 2012
This is my favorite book about Truman. I liked the writing a bit more than other books on him.
September 16, 2008
A long tough slog through history.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews