David McCullough - Truman

Perhaps the highest tribute one can pay a biographer is to say that through him one comes to know his subject almost as though in person. In fostering the readers acquaintance with Harry Truman, not once does McCullough get in the way. This is in every respect a splendid work.

Myron A. Marty, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Since Ive been in national politics, whenever Ive been asked who my favorite political leader of the century is, I have always said Harry Truman. David McCullough has always been a favorite of mine. The Truman biography is outstanding.

Jimmy Carter, The Boston Phoenix

Exemplary and riveting. The book is like a comfortable Victorian three-decker novel. There are two plots, a hero and heroine, and a glittering cast of characters ranging from Dean Acheson, Churchill and General Marshall to the Pendergasts and General MacArthur, as well as a splendid collection of Shakespearean clowns. McCulloughs book will stand for a long time as the outstanding analysis of an extremely important subject: the greatness of Truman, and its role as an exogenous cause in the history of his time.

Eugene V. Rostow, Times Literary Supplement, London

An impressive and valuable study of Truman, worthy of its subject.

C. Vann Woodward, The New York Review

Truman is biography as good as it gets, as absorbing and readable as it is voluminous. McCullough writes like a novelist, digs like a zealous reporter and puts things in perspective like the superb historian he is.

Lorenzo Carcaterra, People magazine

This is the biography of President Harry S. Truman against which not only all other Truman biographies but probably all other presidential biographies will be measured. It is comprehensive, well reasoned, insightful and yet elegantly simple. It is written with a love for the subject that is contagious.

Steve Weinberg, The Kansas City Star

McCullough takes us on a beautifully guided tour of recent historya journey that is as much a celebration of American experience as it is a captivating portrait of the ordinary man from Missouri who became an extraordinary figure in the Cold War world. Keeping Truman himself always vividly in the foreground, Mr. McCullough has written a stirring, masterly, thoroughly absorbing book.

Jean Strouse, author of Alice James: A Biography

We are always at Trumans side, at poker and bourbon and at his high moments. Coverage is complete and fascinating. Now we know Truman in all his candor, courage, straightforwardness, determination and his occasional blunder. This long, penetrating book is biography at its best.

W. A. Swanberg, Chicago Sun-Times

Sweeping and vivid. As a comprehensive and highly readable account of one of the most American of Americans, this is a distinctive and distinguished volume.

Hoyt Purvis, The Dallas Morning News

An enthralling and fluidly told surprise-success story. A book that handles an enormous amount of material with deftness, taste, and an acute understanding of Trumans world and the men who made it.

Rhoda Koenig, New York magazine

Superbly researched and carried forward by McCulloughs narrative drive, Truman is endlessly readable. The Harry we were all wild about is re-created exactly as Harry wasfeisty, preposterous, decisive, tireless, outrageous, but always honorable, always courageous, always guided by his inner gyroscope of conscience and character.

William Manchester, author of William Spencer Churchill: The Last Lion

David McCullough brings Truman vividly to life in this masterpiece of American biography. Its a superb political study and human history.

Steve Neal, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Splendidan elegantly written, even moving workdeserves a wide audienceif nothing else to remind us of what we were and what we had.

Stanley I. Kutler, Chicago Tribune

Surefooted, highly satisfying biography. an impressive tribute to a man whose brisk cheerfulness and self-confidence were combined with a God-fearing humility.

Publishers Weekly

Not only outstanding biography but a great American story as wellby a master of the art. It is about how modern America was made. It is also about character and leadership in a time that needed both.

Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize

Harry Truman has found his biographer. David McCulloughs monumental Truman perfectly mirrors its subjectvivid, straightforward, fast moving, intensely human, never boring for a moment. Truman himself once asserted the right to be both a president and a human being; it is McCulloughs great achievement as a biographer that he has managed to pin both Trumans to paper.

Geoffrey C. Ward, author of The Civil War: An Illustrated History

David McCullough has a rare gift for combining scholarship with storytelling. His Truman ranks with William Manchesters American Caesar and Edmund Morriss The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt among the finest biographies of our time. To call Truman definitive is an understatement. For what Mr. McCullough has created is a vast panorama of American life and politics, from the stagecoach to the space capsule, all swirling around a seemingly ordinary protagonist whose extraordinary qualities make Trumans life a stirring confirmation of democracy at its finest.

Richard Norton Smith, Director, Herbert Hoover Library

A fresh, wonderful new biographyMy only complaint about this marvelous book is how much it makes me miss the old guy with the snappy bow tie.

Daniel Schorr, USA Today

Plain wonderful.

Justin Kaplan

Masterful. Everyone seems to be reading Truman. Those who are sixty years of age or more, and therefore old enough to have adult memories of the man himself, recognize the loving accuracy of McCulloughs account. Professional historians of any age will acknowledge that McCullough has done the hard work necessary for good history and has added zest and imaginationqualities often absent from academic writing.

Gaddis Smith, The Yale Review

JOHN ADAMS

BRAVE COMPANIONS

MORNINGS ON HORSEBACK

THE PATH BETWEEN THE SEAS

THE GREAT BRIDGE

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD

SIMON & SCHUSTER

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Copyright 1992 by David McCullough

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Designed by Eve Metz

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCullough, David G.

Truman/David McCullough.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Truman, Harry S., 18841972.

2. PresidentsUnited StatesBiography.

I. Title.

E814.M26 1992

973.918092dc20 [B] 92-5245 CIP

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-6029-9
ISBN-10: 0-7432-6029-5

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FOR DORIE KANE MCCULLOUGH

We can never tell what is in store for us.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

As an agricultural region, Missouri is not surpassed by any state in the Union. It is indeed the farmers kingdom.

The History of Jackson County, Missouri, 1881