Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman

by Alonzo L. Hamby

Book Overview

Harry S. Truman is remembered today as an icon--the plain-speaking president, "Give 'em Hell Harry," the chief executive who put "The Buck Stops Here" on his desk. But Alonzo L. Hamby shows that there was more to Truman than the pugnacious fighter so prominent in popular memory. Insecure, ambitious, a man of honor, a partisan loyalist, an agrarian Jeffersonian Democrat who became a champion of big government, Truman was a complex figure who fought...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195124979
• ISBN13: 9780195124972
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 784 Pages
• Weight: 2.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Long... but worth the effort!

Hamby's amazing biography of Truman will go down as one of the best books every written about a U.S. president. In amazing detail, he chronicles the rise to fame of one of America's most poorly understood presidents and makes clear that Truman had all the qualities of a good leader. If I was pressed to offer a criticism of the book, however, I would note that it is exceptionally long and detailed. Hamby chronicles the minutae of Truman's early life and career in alarming detail. But if you can make it past the initial chapters, you won't regret it!

Best Truman Biography

This book is easily the most complete, detailed biographical study written about Harry Truman. It reads easily and is carefully referenced. David McCullogh did a great job with the same subject . . . but Hamby's effort is even better.

Truman the man as president

This is one of the better biographies of a US President I have ever read. Hamby avoids the hero worship which plagues other authors and, instead, takes a frank look at the man and how he discharged his duties, public and private, throughout his life. I found this book invaluable resource for understanding the cold war and American politics in the middle of the 20th century.

An Excellent Biography of a Great President!

David Mccullough's book on Truman is great. It is well written, full of great information, and though many people think too pro-Truman it does show why he was a Great Man. Unfortuantely many professors and especially those with Revisionist Tendancies don't feel Mccullough's book is scholary. They see it as Pop History. I think this is academic snobbery, and also stubborness upon the part of the revionists to admit Truman was a great President. However, a good way to silence the revisonists and to read another great book on Truman is to read Hamby's Man of the People. Though a little more critical than Mccollough, Hamby again paints a great portrait of a great man. For whatever reasons, Hamby is considered more scholary and his book more scholary. Whatever makes our Professors happy. But regardless, this is a great book. Though long like Mccollough, it tells a great story. Hamby is a fine historian who was also on c-spans look at Truman for its President's series. So in short, a more "academic" but just as great book on Truman.

Superb bio without the mythology that has obscured Truman

Hamby uses the tools of a professional historian -- excellent documentation and sources, superb prose, and healthy skepticism -- to brilliantly move beyond the standard adoring view of Truman as a plain-talking, quick-deciding everyman. While he is shown to have been those things, he is also revealed to have shared much of the pettiness, anger, and impulsiveness that have marked many of his predecessors and successors. He is (surprize, surprize) a human being rather than an icon. Especially good is Hamby's narrative of the downhill trajectory of Truman's second term and the post-Potsdam evolution of his anti-communism. Historical biography at its absolute best. And by rendering Truman human, he ultimately produces a more admiring portrait than other books that set out to be adoring.