About the Author

Alonzo L. Hamby is Professor of History at Ohio University. His books include Liberalism and its Challengers, The Imperial Years, and Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism.

Reviews

"Man of the People is the best of the Truman biographies, beating by a short head David McCullough's highly readable Truman, published four years ago."--The Sunday Telegraph
"Hamby has produced a massive, engaging, and revealing political and personal study.... He renders a Truman who is more complex and, perhaps, more real--a man flawed and ordinary in many ways, yet ultimately admirable and often consistent with the mythology that casts him as an ordinary man called upon to play an extraordinary role in world history.... This is an admirably thoughtful and penetrating study. Hamby has taken us a step beyond
mythology."--Chicago Tribune
"Hamby presents a beautifully constructed and scrupulously researched portrait of Truman that strips away the mythologizer's varnish to give us the authentic, gutsy politician whose life was a potent testimony to burning ambition, good judgment, and blind luck.... It's all here: the Truman Doctrine, the Taft-Hartley Act, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, the National Security Act, the 1948 upset victory, the creation of NATO, the Chinese Revolution,
McCarthy, NSC-68, the Korean War, Douglas MacArthur's dismissal.... At the helm of these events is Truman, making tough decisions more carefully in Man of the People than in other biographies, an ordinary fellow less self-assured than we have been led to believe by 'The Buck Stops Here'
promoters."--Douglas Brinkley, The Washington Post Book World
"A superb new biography.... The Truman we meet in these pages is more troubled, complicated, and genuine than the man we have read about before. While Mr. Hamby's account lacks the narrative drive of David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning Truman...it is superior...in providing a clear interpretative framework for understanding the relationship between Truman's personal traits and his momentous Presidential decisions.... What Mr. Hamby has done, with
great skill, is to remind us of the real Harry Truman, to demythologize him without slighting his accomplishments or his rough road to success."--The New York Times Book Review
"More closely than other historians, Mr. Hamby pursues the emotional and intellectual life of this provincial, accidental President who was much loathed in office but died an American hero."--The New York Times Book Review (And Bear in Mind)
"A book that should be read by everyone who prefers history to myth-making."--David Frum, The Weekly Standard
"Man of the People offers an appreciative but clear-eyed and unsentimental view of Harry Truman. Readers interested in what give-em-hell-Harry was really like won't want to miss it."--William E. Leuchtenburg, William Rand Kenan Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
"Hamby's rich portrait reveals a man devoted to honesty and efficiency in public service, who excelled at building bipartisan coalitions, displayed an ability to make hard decisions, and was 'magnificently right' in his contributions to the early civil rights movement and to the mobilization of the West against the Soviet challenge....[Hamby's] biography vividly defines the man, both public and private."--Publishers Weekly
"Is there need for another comprehensive Truman biography? Yes, and noted Truman historian Hamby provides it."--Library Journal
"Man of the People reveals the mastery of factual detail and contemporary scholarship we have come to expect from Alonzo Hamby. What is an additional bonus is the fascinating and thoroughly convincing portrait of Truman the man contained in these pages. This is the definitive biography of one of the great presidents of the 20th century."--John A. Garraty, Governor Morris Professor, Columbia University
"Man of the People is an altogether splendid biography. It combines well-paced narrative and sensitive portraiture with incisive analysis in setting Harry Truman against the troubles and triumphs of a turbulent time."--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
"A cool, highly nuanced examination of Truman's cultural and political milieus....Includes excellent analyses of Truman's difficulties in keeping together the loose New Deal coalition and his vacillation before recognizing Israel."--Kirkus Reviews
"One of the most eminent Truman scholars in the historical profession, at the capstone of his career, has brought us a deeply researched, often surprising scholarly life of the thirty-third President, raising questions that will absorb the general reader and animate historians for years to come."--Michael R. Beschloss, author of The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963
"This rich and illuminating book is by far the most persuasive of the many Truman biographies. Unlike previous writers, Hamby neither demonizes nor idealizes his subject, but instead presents him as a complex, fallible human being whose strengths are in many ways the reciprocals of his weaknesses."--Fred I. Greenstein, Princeton University, author of The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader
"Alonzo Hamby has brought his considerable experience as a Truman scholar to this major study. His rich and insightful account of a man who has become mythical not for what he did but for 'who America believed him to be' should do much to dispel mysteries about the man and his time. This biography is thorough, both for Truman's public as well as his private life. Hamby does not hesitate to offer some tough analyses, from the Truman role in ending World
War II and the bombing of Hiroshima to Korea and General MacArthur."--Herbert S. Parmet, Professor Emeritus, The City University of New York, author of J.F.K.: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon and His America
"In his preface Alonzo Hamby, the leading Truman scholar, hopes readers will find this book a 'crackling good story.' Few books on the presidency crackle half as much. None other so profoundly deepens our understanding of Harry Truman and his times. Hamby's probing not only explains Truman with a new clarity but shows why Truman, discredited when he left office, is today regarded as one of our great presidents. This book will be read for a long time."--Robert
J. Donovan, noted Washington journalist, author of Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1948 and Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949-1953