The trials of Harry S. Truman : the extraordinary presidency of an ordinary man, 1945-1953 / Jeffrey Frank.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frank, Jeffrey, 1942- author.

Contributor:

Christine Hikawa Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Presidents--United States--Biography.

Presidents.

United States.

Politics and government.

Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972.

Truman, Harry S.

United States--Politics and government--1945-1953.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xliv, 528 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2022.

Summary:

"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 weapon; the beginning of the Cold War; creation of the NATO alliance; the founding of the United Nations; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight 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 was disturbed by the brutal treatment of African Americans. Yet while he supported stronger civil rights laws, he never quite 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 emotion, as when, in the aftermath of World War II, moved by the plight of refugees, he pushed to recognize the new state of Israel. 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 deeply human, portrait of an ordinary man suddenly forced to shoulder extraordinary responsibilities, who never lost a schoolboy's romantic love for his country, and its Constitution." -- Amazon.com.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. President Truman

2. Terminal

3. An Unsteady Alliance

4. "The Basic Power of the Universe"

5. Truman's "Conniver"

6. Churchill Makes Mischief

7. The Quick and the Dead

8. A Season of Disharmony

9. The Doctrine's Dilemma

10. Wealth of a Nation

11. Strange Interludes

12. A Cemetery for Dead Cats

13. Minority Reports

14. The Frontiers of Hazard

15. The Scrapper

16. Office Politics

17. "First Lightning"

18. "A New Fanatic Faith"

19. A "Border Incident"

20. "The Second Hand of Destiny"

21. A Meeting on a Small Island

22. Mense Horribilis

23. "Voice of God"

24. "The Mess in Washington"

25. Dubious Battles

26. Bad Chemistry

27. The Bitter End.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 471-493) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Christine Hikawa Fund.

ISBN:

9781501102899

1501102893

OCLC:

1259046561

Publisher Number:

99990296292