This correspondence, which encompasses Truman's courtship of his wife, his service in the senate, his presidency, and after, reveals not only the character of Truman's mind but also a shrewd observer's view of American politics.

Jeffrey Frank, author of the bestselling Ike and Dick, returns with the “beguiling” (The New York Times) first full account of the Truman presidency in nearly thirty years, recounting how a seemingly ordinary man met the extraordinary challenge of leading America through the pivotal years of the mid-20th century. 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.

Based upon extensive research in the papers of President Harry S. Truman and in several journalistic collections, Harry S. Truman and the News Media recounts the story of a once unpopular chief executive who overcame the censure of the news media to ultimately win both the public's and the press's affirmation of his personal and presidential greatness. Franklin D. Mitchell traces the major contours of journalism during the lifetime and presidency of Truman. Although newspapers and newsmagazines are given the most emphasis, reporters and columnists of the Washington news corps also figure prominently for their role in the president's news conferences and their continuing coverage of Truman and his family. Broadcast journalism's expanding coverage of the president is also explored through chapters dealing with radio and television. President Truman's advocacy of a liberal Fair Deal for all Americans and a prudent and visible role for the nation in world affairs drew fire from the anti-administration news media, particularly the publishing empire of William Randolph Hearst, the McCormick-Patterson newspapers, the Scripps-Howard chain, and the Time-Life newsmagazines of Henry R. Luce. Despite press opposition and the almost universal prediction of defeat in the 1948 election, Truman was victorious in the greatest miscalled presidential election in journalistic history. During his full term, Truman's relations with the news media became contentious over such matters as national security in the Cold War, the conduct of the Korean War, and the continuing charges of communism and corruption in the administration. Although Truman's career in politics was based on honesty and the welfare of the people, his early political alliance with Thomas Pendergast, Kansas City's notorious political boss, provided the opportunity for a portion of the press to charge Truman with subservience to Pendergast's own agenda of corrupt government. The history and the dynamics of the Truman presidency and the American news media, combined with biographical and institutional sketches of key individuals and news organizations, make Harry S. Truman and the News Media a captivating and original investigation of an American president. Well written and researched, this book will be of great value to Truman scholars, journalists, and anyone interested in American history or presidential studies.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian. The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri” who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.

The Chicago Tribune headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" remains infamously wrong about the outcome of the 1948 presidential election. But, as Andrew Busch reveals, there is much more to this story than the well-worn image of a victorious and beaming President Harry Truman parading the newspaper's erroneously headlined front page for all to see. Primarily a contest between Truman and challenger Thomas Dewey, the 1948 presidential race offered something for everyone, including two third-party candidates (Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace), triumphant grit, tragic hubris, dangerous naivet, accidents of fate, accusations of betrayal, foreign crises, the birth of Israel in the Middle East, a dramatic special session of Congress, internecine battles among unions and liberals, spies, extremists galore (including Ku Klux Klansmen and Communists), the first televised convention, wayward polls, and, of course, a final result that surprised many. Amid a small library of books on the topic, Busch's stands out by offering the best scholarly study available--and the most readable. His fresh account goes beyond previous work by examining more closely the nomination season, key congressional elections, and the state of public opinion. He also digs into splits in both parties-the Democrats seeing Southern segregationists and the far left run their own candidates and the Republicans facing a division between philosophical wings representing the 80th Congress and the presidential ticket--and tells why the Republican schism proved more damaging. He concludes that the election was especially significant as an affirmation of the New Deal, of anti-Communist containment, and of gradual progress in civil rights--all of which established the political baseline for postwar America. Even readers knowledgeable about Truman's 1948 victory will discover new findings in this fresh and revealing account of that dramatic race. Truman's Triumphs recalls a contest with more twists and turns-and a different outcome-than most contemporaries anticipated, and makes engaging reading for scholar and history buff alike.

Given his background, President Truman was an unlikely champion of civil rights. Where he grew up--the border state of Missouri--segregation was accepted and largely unquestioned. Both his maternal and paternal grandparents had owned slaves, and his beloved mother, victimized by Yankee forces, railed against Abraham Lincoln for the remainder of her ninety-four years. When Truman assumed the presidency on April 12, 1945, Michael R. Gardner points out, Washington, DC, in many ways resembled Cape Town, South Africa, under apartheid rule circa 1985. Truman's background notwithstanding, Gardner shows that it was Harry Truman--not Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or John F. Kennedy--who energized the modern civil rights movement, a movement that basically had stalled since Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves. Gardner recounts Truman's public and private actions regarding black Americans. He analyzes speeches, private conversations with colleagues, the executive orders that shattered federal segregation policies, and the appointments of like-minded civil rights activists to important positions. Among those appointments was the first black federal judge in the continental United States. Gardner characterizes Truman's evolution from a man who grew up in a racist household into a president willing to put his political career at mortal risk by actively supporting the interests of black Americans.

Lectures and discussions held at Columbia University on April 27, 28, and 29, 1959.

The 1948 election was a war for the soul of the Democratic Party, with accidental president Harry Truman pitted against Henry Wallace, his embittered left-wing predecessor as vice president, and young South Carolina segregationist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. On the GOP side, it's a four-way battle between cold-as-ice New Yorker Tom Dewey, Minnesota upstart Harold Stassen, stodgy but brilliant Ohio conservative Robert Taft, and imperious but aged Douglas MacArthur. Author David Pietrusza goes beyond the headlines to place in context a down-to-the-wire fight against the background of an erupting Cold War, the birth of Israel, storms over civil rights, and domestic communism. Featuring a stellar supporting cast: Alger Hiss, Whitaker Chambers, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Earl Warren, Paul Robeson, Lillian Hellman, Pete Seeger, Eleanor Roosevelt, Joe McCarthy, Clark Clifford, William O. Douglas, George C. Marshall, John Foster Dulles, Adlai Stevenson, Lyndon Johnson, H. L. Mencken, Harold Ickes, Clare and Henry Luce, and Ronald Reagan.--From publisher description.

MLK’s classic account of the first successful large-scale act of nonviolent resistance in America: the Montgomery bus boycott. A young Dr. King wrote Stride Toward Freedom just 2 years after the successful completion of the boycott. In his memoir about the event, he tells the stories that informed his radical political thinking before, during, and after the boycott—from first witnessing economic injustice as a teenager and watching his parents experience discrimination to his decision to begin working with the NAACP. Throughout, he demonstrates how activism and leadership can come from any experience at any age. Comprehensive and intimate, Stride Toward Freedom emphasizes the collective nature of the movement and includes King’s experiences learning from other activists working on the boycott, including Mrs. Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin. It traces the phenomenal journey of a community and shows how the 28-year-old Dr. King, with his conviction for equality and nonviolence, helped transform the nation and the world. This book was published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped one of them at random.

During the atomic, earthshaking first 120 days of Harry Truman's unlikely presidency, an unprepared, small-town man had to take on Germany, Japan, Stalin, and a secret weapon of unimaginable power--marking the most dramatic rise to greatness in American history.