The Trials of Harry S. Truman: The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953
Written by Jeffrey Frank
Narrated by Fred Sanders
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
The nearly eight years of Harry Truman’s presidency—among the most turbulent in American history—were marked by victory in the wars against Germany and Japan; the first use of an atomic bomb and the development of far deadlier weapons; the start of the Cold War and the creation of the NATO alliance; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight a costly “limited war” in Korea.
Historians have tended to portray Truman as stolid and decisive, with a homespun manner, but the man who emerges in The Trials of Harry S. Truman is complex and surprising. He believed that the point of public service was to improve the lives of one’s fellow citizens and fought for a national health insurance plan. While he was disturbed by the brutal treatment of African Americans and came to support stronger civil rights laws, he never relinquished the deep-rooted outlook of someone with Confederate ancestry reared in rural Missouri. He was often carried along by the rush of events and guided by men who succeeded in refining his fixed and facile view of the postwar world. And while he prided himself on his Midwestern rationality, he could act out of instinct and combativeness, as when he asserted a president’s untested power to seize the nation’s steel mills.
The Truman who emerges in these pages is a man with generous impulses, loyal to friends and family, and blessed with keen political instincts, but insecure, quick to anger, and prone to hasty decisions. Archival discoveries, and research that led from Missouri to Washington, Berlin and Korea, have contributed to an indelible and “intimate” (The Washington Post) portrait of a man, born in the 19th century, who set the nation on a course that reverberates in the 21st century, a leader who never lost a schoolboy’s love for his country and its Constitution.
Jeffrey Frank
Jeffrey Frank was a senior editor at The New Yorker, the deputy editor of The Washington Post’s Outlook section, and is the author of Ike and Dick. He has published four novels, among them the Washington Trilogy—The Columnist, Bad Publicity, and Trudy Hopedale—and is the coauthor, with Diana Crone Frank, of a new translation of Hans Christian Andersen stories, which won the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Prize. He is a contributor to The New Yorker, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Bookforum, and Vogue, among other publications.
Related to The Trials of Harry S. Truman
Related audiobooks
Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wilson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Watergate Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harry S. Truman: The American Presidents Series: The 33rd President, 1945-1953 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grover Cleveland: The American Presidents Series: The 22nd and 24th President, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Did We Get Here?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Heritage History of the Presidents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exceptional: Why the World Needs A Powerful America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5William Howard Taft: The American Presidents Series: The 27th President, 1909-1913 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Supreme Commander: MacArthur's Triumph in Japan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5James Monroe: A Republican Champion Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best Presidential Writing: From 1789 to the Present Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFranklin Delano Roosevelt: The American Presidents Series: The 32nd President, 1933-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5George H. W. Bush: The American Presidents Series: The 41st President, 1989-1993 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year That Transformed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon--The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51944: FDR and the Year That Changed History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the President 1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes 1963 1964 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Political Biographies For You
The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Infidel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White House Plumbers: The Seven Weeks That Led to Watergate and Doomed Nixon's Presidency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peril Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mornings on Horseback Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A House in the Sky: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Rivals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Trials of Harry S. Truman
11 ratings0 reviews