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Larry's Reviews > Truman
Truman
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Lifted from my review at Amazon.com
While it's Ok for a historian to like the subject of the biography, he should not love him. David McCullough likes Harry Truman a bit too much. As a result he seldom takes a critical view of Truman's Presidency, politics or personal life. This is disappointing given that Harry Truman was the President at probably the key juncture of twentieth century - the end of War World II and the beginning of the Cold War. More time is spent describing the whistle-stop campaign of 1948 then in explaining the development of the containment strategy of Soviet expansion. He also dismisses Secretary of State Dean Acheson's January 1950 omission of South Korea as being in the United States defense perimeter as being the inspiration of the subsequent attack that June by North Korean forces. While it may not have been the inspiration, that statement along with troop withdraws in 1948 and 1949 were hardly discouragements.
Yes, Harry was the common man who became President but McCullough glosses over the reasons for Henry Wallace being replaced by Truman as V.P. on the 1944 ticket. McCullough tells us that many Southern Democrats and city bosses were uncomfortable with Wallace, especially given Roosevelt's health. But the reader is left wondering why they were uncomfortable. Indeed many Democratic leaders were worried that Wallace and his advisors were too sympathetic to the Soviets and that "moderate" Harry Truman would take a tougher post-war stand against them than would Wallace.
Still, McCullough has a good literary style and his account often reads more like a novel than a biography. This is especially true early in the book when he describes Truman ancestors, background and upbringing in western Missouri. And when he weaves in little ancedotes about Truman's personal life both before and during his time in the White House, McCullough is at his best.
Harry S Truman was a genuine American, a patriot and a good President at a pivotal time in U.S. history. He deserves a more critical examination of his life and Presidency. After all "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Harry could stand the heat and give them hell back. David McCullough ought to know that.
While it's Ok for a historian to like the subject of the biography, he should not love him. David McCullough likes Harry Truman a bit too much. As a result he seldom takes a critical view of Truman's Presidency, politics or personal life. This is disappointing given that Harry Truman was the President at probably the key juncture of twentieth century - the end of War World II and the beginning of the Cold War. More time is spent describing the whistle-stop campaign of 1948 then in explaining the development of the containment strategy of Soviet expansion. He also dismisses Secretary of State Dean Acheson's January 1950 omission of South Korea as being in the United States defense perimeter as being the inspiration of the subsequent attack that June by North Korean forces. While it may not have been the inspiration, that statement along with troop withdraws in 1948 and 1949 were hardly discouragements.
Yes, Harry was the common man who became President but McCullough glosses over the reasons for Henry Wallace being replaced by Truman as V.P. on the 1944 ticket. McCullough tells us that many Southern Democrats and city bosses were uncomfortable with Wallace, especially given Roosevelt's health. But the reader is left wondering why they were uncomfortable. Indeed many Democratic leaders were worried that Wallace and his advisors were too sympathetic to the Soviets and that "moderate" Harry Truman would take a tougher post-war stand against them than would Wallace.
Still, McCullough has a good literary style and his account often reads more like a novel than a biography. This is especially true early in the book when he describes Truman ancestors, background and upbringing in western Missouri. And when he weaves in little ancedotes about Truman's personal life both before and during his time in the White House, McCullough is at his best.
Harry S Truman was a genuine American, a patriot and a good President at a pivotal time in U.S. history. He deserves a more critical examination of his life and Presidency. After all "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Harry could stand the heat and give them hell back. David McCullough ought to know that.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
June 21, 2012
– Shelved
As just one of many examples, McCullough seems quite settled on his view that Truman did not owe his political career to the Pendergasts, and only very lightly engages the topic. By my reading of events, it is quite fair to consider Truman entirely of the Pendegasts until his 1940 campaign. Perhaps McCullough thought that Truman was the Pendegast's politician and that was fine, which would be a perfectly valid point of view, but he never actually makes that argument. Instead he states a few times without any real support that Truman was unfairly considered to be controlled by the Pendegasts, and to me that seems an interpretation in need of a lot more support, support McCullough never bothers to provide. This is either lazy or partisan history, and thus, disappointing.
Truman's general small-mindedness, embrace of the Confederacy and all its mythology, and his rather developed racist attitudes are also accepted by McCullough as simple expressions of Truman's upbringing. That might work if the subject is a small town citizen who rarely ventured out of his home region, but doesn't at all suffice when the subject is the President of the United States who spent much of his life working with a wide variety of people and frequently traveling overseas. By his adulthood, if Truman remains a product of his upbringing it is because he chose to be that way, not that his mindset was preordained.