You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by ryanpfw
The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World by A.J. Baime
5.0
A very solid read.
Harry Truman is retrospectively considered one of American’s greatest presidents due to the substance of decisions he made, the absurdity of his progress to the presidency, the theatrics of his re-election, and most importantly, because of the juxtaposition of his unshakable will and common man vulnerability. He never sought the presidency, would ever become president today, inherited the office from a giant, was woefully unprepared by the vice-presidency, and yet is remembered for being the right person at the right time who rose to the challenge.
Harry Truman was not a perfect person. (His wife was apparently a raging antisemite and his mother would have a confederate flag on her bumper today!) There’s a conversation going on in America today that we shouldn’t consider people in the period they existed, but should superimpose them on today’s standards, see how they’d measure up in 2020, and judge them harshly. Harry Truman would fail that test. Most would. And yet for his time, he was a forward thinker, a good human, and I’d take him today in a nanosecond.
This book, while promising to be laser focused on the first four months of his accidental presidency, does spend quite a bit of time on the decades leading up to 1945. It’s a conceit, for sure, and the promise wasn’t fully possible, but I learned quite a bit I didn’t know despite my interest in Truman. AJ Baime lays out an impressive, evidence-soaked argument for the mistakes and accomplishments of Harry Truman.
Highly recommended!
Harry Truman is retrospectively considered one of American’s greatest presidents due to the substance of decisions he made, the absurdity of his progress to the presidency, the theatrics of his re-election, and most importantly, because of the juxtaposition of his unshakable will and common man vulnerability. He never sought the presidency, would ever become president today, inherited the office from a giant, was woefully unprepared by the vice-presidency, and yet is remembered for being the right person at the right time who rose to the challenge.
Harry Truman was not a perfect person. (His wife was apparently a raging antisemite and his mother would have a confederate flag on her bumper today!) There’s a conversation going on in America today that we shouldn’t consider people in the period they existed, but should superimpose them on today’s standards, see how they’d measure up in 2020, and judge them harshly. Harry Truman would fail that test. Most would. And yet for his time, he was a forward thinker, a good human, and I’d take him today in a nanosecond.
This book, while promising to be laser focused on the first four months of his accidental presidency, does spend quite a bit of time on the decades leading up to 1945. It’s a conceit, for sure, and the promise wasn’t fully possible, but I learned quite a bit I didn’t know despite my interest in Truman. AJ Baime lays out an impressive, evidence-soaked argument for the mistakes and accomplishments of Harry Truman.
Highly recommended!