The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of
American stories, filled with vivid characters -- Roosevelt,
Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman,
George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson -- and
dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed
historian David McCullough not only captures the man -- a
more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before
imagined -- but also the turbulent times in which he rose,
boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president
to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the
twentieth centuries, Truman's story spans the raw world of
the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast
machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign
of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront
Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General
MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and
extensive interviews with Truman's own family, friends, and
Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving
story of the seemingly ordinary "man from Missouri" who was
perhaps the most courageous president in our history.