More About The Man of Independence: HARRY S TRUMAN: A Life By Robert...
HARRY S TRUMANÛªS life was an accident. All of it. Harry just sort of bumped into life, taking whatever was handed him by fate. He was a bank teHer, a farmer, a soldier, an oil and mining speculator, and then at the age of 37, he narrowly avoided bankruptcy after opening a fancy menÛªs clothing store just in time for the recession of the early 1920s. Only then did he stumble into his true calling as a professional politician when a member of the infamous Pendergast political machine asked him, on a whim, if he was interested in running for a county judgeship.</br></br>This is the now familiar story of the ÛÏfaded haberdasherÛ who makes good as the "accidental" 33rd president of the United States. For much of his nearly eight years in the White House, however, Truman was ridiculed by the press and buffeted by numerous controversies and not a few petty scandals. By November 1951, his standing in the polls bottomed out at 23 percent. And yet, today his reputation is such that politicians from both parties openly attempt to emulate the straight-talking, no-nonsense demeanor of "citizen Truman."</br></br>Two years ago, one of our national storytellers, the sonorously voiced David McCullough, cashed in on the phenomenon with hi3 wildly successful, 1,117-page biography Truman. The book won a Pulitzer Prize and a slot on the bestseller lists for months.</br></br>Now comes Robert H. Ferrell with a far more modest 484-page portrait of Harry Truman. Why should we care? HasnÛªt McCullough said it all? Well, perhaps not Many historians were frustrated by McCulloughÛªs refusal to engage with the historiography of the Truman presidency. In separate reviews, historians Alan Brinkley, C. Vann Woodward and Ronald Steel all complained that while McCullough was a ÛÏgreat scene-setter and storytellerÛ (Steel), he largely ignores historical controversiesÛ such as ÛÏthe vast revisionist literature on the origins of the cold warÛ (Woodward), the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the founding of the CIA, the outbreak of the Korean War, and the phenomenal growth of the military budget during the Truman presidency. McCul- lough was guilty of hagiography, which may not be such a terrible crime for a biographer; but his work cannot be called critical history.</br></br>Ferrell also admires Truman, as much, if not more so, than McCullough. As an author or editor of eight previous books on Truman, including Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S Truman, Ferrell is probably as responsible as any academic for refurbishing TrumanÛªs reputation.