Harry Truman
From charlesreid1
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| Title | Author | Year | Started | Finished | Opinion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Truman | David McCullough | A very comprehensive biography of Truman; it does a particularly good job of providing the context of the times, which helps the reader to understand why Truman made the choices he did, and consequently why people saw him the way they did. |
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| Title | Author | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harry Truman and the Cold War Revisionists | Robert H. Ferrell | 2006 | A book covering the subject of historical revisionism, how it is being applied to Harry Truman's presidency, and how, in the author's opinion, it is being done incorrectly.
Book idea came from browsing Amazon. At the Marriott Library:
Amazon Description: The idea of revising what is known of the past constitutes an essential procedure in historical scholarship, but revisionists are often hasty and argumentative in their judgments. Such, argues Robert H. Ferrell, has been the case with assessments of the presidency of Harry S. Truman, who was targeted by historians and political scientists in the 1960s and ’70s for numerous failings in both domestic and foreign policy, including launching the cold war—perceptions that persist to the present day. Widely acknowledged as today’s foremost Truman scholar, Ferrell turns the tables on the revisionists in this collection of classic essays. He goes below the surface appearances of history to examine how situations actually developed and how Truman performed sensibly—even courageously—in the face of unforeseen crises. While some revisionists see Truman as consumed by a blind hatred of the Soviet Union and adopting an unrestrainedly militant stance, Ferrell convincingly shows that Truman wished to get along with the Soviets and was often bewildered by their actions. He interprets policies such as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and support for NATO as prudent responses to perceived threats and credits the Truman administration for the ways in which it dealt with unprecedented problems. What emerges most vividly from Ferrell’s essays is a sense of how weak a hand the United States held from 1945 to1950, with its conventional forces depleted by the return of veterans to civil pursuits after the war and with its capacity for delivery of nuclear weapons in a sorry state. He shows that Truman regarded the atomic bomb as a weapon of last resort, not an instrument of policy, and that he took America into a war in Korea for the good of the United States and its allies. Although Truman has been vindicated on many of these issues, there still remains a lingering controversy over the use of atomic weapons in Japan—a decision that Ferrell argues is understandable in light of what Truman faced at the start of his presidency. Ferrell argues that the revisionists who attacked Truman understood neither the times nor the man—one of the most clearheaded, farsighted presidents ever to occupy the Oval Office. Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists shows us that Truman’s was indeed a remarkable presidency, as it cautions historians against too quickly appraising the very recent past. 160 pages. |
| The Truman Presidency: The History of a Triumphant Succession | Cabell Phillips | 1966 | Authored by a New York Times reporter in Washington during the Truman presidency.
At the Marriott Library:
Book idea came from Truman bibliography at PresidentialProfiles.com: http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Grant-Eisenhower/Harry-S-Truman-Bibliography.html |
| A Cross of Iron: Harry Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954 | Michael J. Hogan | 1998 | Covers the advent of a more consolidated military-industrial complex under both Truman and Eisenhower.
At the Marriott Library:
Book idea came from Truman bibliography at PresidentialProfiles.com: http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Grant-Eisenhower/Harry-S-Truman-Bibliography.html From Library Journal: Hogan, a specialist in American diplomatic and national security studies, has written a complex but interesting work on the emergence of the national security state. To create this state, it was necessary to merge the armed forces, the Defense Department, and scientists into a single unit to enhance the military's capabilities. To a large extent, this unification was accomplished in the 1950s. The driving forces were James Forrestal, Dean Acheson, and powerful members of Congress such as Carl Vinson (D-GA), who chaired the Committee on Naval Affairs, along with presidents Truman and Eisenhower. Hogan presents a compelling case but overemphasizes the importance of Truman and Eisenhower while downplaying the role of Vinson and others in the security state's creation. In fact, both Truman and Eisenhower often seemed opposed to it but succumbed to pressure from Congress and key figures like Acheson. This extremely complex study, which deals with a subject few other books handle, is designed for scholars and informed lay readers interested in the creation of the "military-industrial complex. From Booklist: Historian Hogan, editor of the journal Diplomatic History and author of several books on U.S. foreign relations in the twentieth century, offers this study of the post^-World War II debate within the U.S. about what the nation's world role should be and how our institutions should change to meet that role's demands. The debate pitted supporters of a new national security ideology (e.g., Acheson and Kennan) against representatives of an older political culture (e.g., Taft and Hoover) whose values were antistatist, antimilitarist, and isolationist. Tracing the face-off through many issues--from the National Security Act and universal military service to defense reorganization and budget priorities--Hogan sees both Truman and Eisenhower as figures of compromise. Like congressional Republicans, both presidents wanted to avoid turning the U.S. into a "garrison state," but they shared the national security proponents' conviction that that could be prevented only by a policy of internationalism. In the end, Hogan suggests, "the most important constraints on the national security state were those built into the country's democratic institutions and political culture. 540 pages. |
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