Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

David McCullough's Truman takes an exhaustive, commendably objective look at America's 33rd President. Despite its length (over 1,000 pages!) it's consistently compelling thanks to McCullough's engaging writing style, chronicling Truman's rise from small-town Missouri to the Presidency with verve and excitement. What impressed me most was how willing McCullough to analyze Truman's faults and failures (a marked turn from John Adams, where he seemed eager to airbrush his subject). Truman's involvement with the Pendergast machine, his casual bigotry and slowness to evolve past it; his penchant for surrounding himself with friends and crooked cronies; his naivety towards Stalin (and rebirth as a zealous Cold Warrior), fueling the postwar Red Scare and mishandling Korea all receive fair and copious attention. Even so, these seem to enhance Truman's positive traits: his personal integrity, penchant for decisive (if sometimes misguided) action, and his surprising intelligence and clearheadedness in assessing world events. McCullough marks his assuming office after FDR's death, the adoption of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift and the creation of Israel as Truman's great accomplishments, assessments which may vary depending on your own perspectives. Nonetheless, it's a rich, convincing and very human look at a man who, if not an all-time great president, nonetheless seems refreshingly honest, flexible and decisive compared to recent chief executives.