Truman Books

Great Sunday school or Bible study group guide. Suggestions that cover ages six to ninety. Solid Bible doctorines organized into 13 week series. Lots of scripture references for the techer to study will give you way more info than can be imparted in the average class time. This means you will teach from an over flow of material, no fumbleing around to fill the time till class ends. Inspireing resource. God Bless.

Hard to believe that someone who served in FDR's War Cabinet might still be alive, but here he is, wry, taciturn, often funny, and still full of vigor at age 90 something. With Steve Hundley, Truman Gibson has written a brutal, no holds barred account of his first fifty years on this planet, and it will take the tar right off of your shingles. Gibson was there, and he brings many scenes to life, and he remembers everything, from growing up in Atlanta and having his mother, an upright character, give the mannered WEB DuBois a taste of his own medicine. He would come to call on the Gibson family and expect to be treated like some sort of potentate. Well, Alberta Dickerson Gibson was having none of that! In her house, he'd be treated just like any other respected guest, but certainly no one would be doing any kowtowing to him.

The family moved to Columbus when Truman and his brother, Harry when small. Imagine having two boys named Harry and Truman! And Truman was to have many close enclunters with HARRY TRUMAN later in life. From Columbus, where young Gibson first encountered race prejudice, and incidentally saw his first snowfall, it was but a hop, skip and a jump to Chicago, the so-called "black metropolis," which was to be his home base for the rest of his career. He met everyone worth knowing in Chicago, and by the time the 30s had come around, he was put in charge of many details of the important American Negro Exposition--the first black World's Fair. Now, this is one World's Fair which you never hear about any more, I wonder why, because as Gibson paints it, it was the spectacle to top all spectacles, involving Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Joe Louis, Jacob Lawrence, and so many more great black figures. The next step for Gibson was throwing his lot behind the cause of the Negro soldier in WWII.

Some have criticized him as an "Uncle Tom" who made his way into the big leagues by kissing up to the white man and making nice. I get furious when I hear people say that, for as this book proves, Gibson fought every battle from the street up. Disgustingly, the Army kept colored and white troops segregated during the war, and in the Air Force, white pilots refused to fly planes that had been serviced by black mechanics. Amazing Eleanor Roosevelt responded by requesting black pilots for all her succeeding flights, showing the world that whatever white people could do, black people could do just as well. It's not just sturm und drang either in this exciting volume. There are some spots of humor too, for Gibson knew many fascinating characters right out of the pages of Damon Runyon. One time he went to Italy where he encountered the "old world" custom, the toilet a hole in the ground but a sophisticated contraption he couldn't figure out what it was for. Finally, a wiser man told him, Truman, that's a bidet.

Gibson nearly came a cropper as the spokesman for the International Boxing Council. I won't spoil the story for you, but if Martin Scorcese should ever make a sequel to RAGING BULL, he should run, don't walk, to the pages of KNOCKING DOWN BARRIERS where scene after scene rival the best boxing writing ever put to paper.

There are actually two volumes to this work. The first covers the period from 1927 through 1936 and the second 1937 through 1946. This work is simply a journal, diary of a Ozark Preacher and his travels throughout the region of S. West Missouri. It covers in detail the writer's work with the various churches in in circut. The book is a wealth of names and places, now, long forgotten. The work is very, very detailed and I have found it to be almost irreplaceable as a research tool. The books are locally published and rather difficult to find, but are well worth the effort. Highly recommend this work.

I first encountered this book over 14 years ago when dealing with the sudden death of my young husband. Young, with four small children to raise alone, I often felt hopeless and alone in my struggle. Various friends bought books to comfort and inspire me...but no book spoke to me as much as this one. Again and again I had to remind myself the book chronicled someone else's story and not mine. Her story and insights gave me great comfort and hope. I'll never forget this book as it provided me with some of my best therapy in those often dark and overwhelming months following my loss. If you or someone you care about is dealing with such loss, this book is a must!

I thought that I knew something about Joseph Smith until I started listening to these tapes. Dr. Madsen presents the life of Joseph Smith in an inspiring, entertaining, and informative way. You can listen to these lectures over and over again. I highly recommend them.

I've been researching the mythology of Lilith, especially contemporary interpretations, and Nick's story is by far my favorite. Frankly, I am growing tired of environmentalist and feminist tales, where Lilith is the harmonious nature-goddess or the woman who doesn't need a man. In my heart, the story of Eden is a story of independence versus obedience, newness versus stasis, true love versus the Voice. I'm indebted to Nick. Her Lilith, like her language, is extraordinarily beautiful.

This is an all but forgotten collection of travel essays. That those words could be said in reference to anything written by Truman Capote is a crime. I had to order this used (which I don't mind in the least - these books often have a character all their own), and was immediately capitvated by the "voice" of this singular artist. These essays are rich in the flavor of people, places and cultures encountered by Capote, whose luminous prose styling is everywhere in eveidence. I am continually awed by the the talent of the this writer. Over the past few months I've read almost everything in the canon and have never been less than thrilled by this author's use of language and imagery. It's time to get this book back in print. Vintage International publishes a beautiful paperback combining the novella "The Grass Harp" with "A Tree of Night and Other Stories" - why not publish these wonderful essays in a single volume with "The Muses Are Heard"? Well, we're all waiting.

This was required reading for a graduate course in American history. In this engaging biography, Robert H. Ferrell, who has authored and edited eight previous books on Truman, does an admirable job of presenting the life and presidency of Harry S. Truman. Although one can detect Ferrell's admiration for Truman, one senses from the extensive notes, bibliography, and research conducted at the Truman Library as well as his willingness to criticize Truman for his mistakes, that Ferrell has written a very balanced biography of Truman. Ferrell's book is a good introductory biography of Truman's whole life; the first eight chapters are devoted to his life prior to his ascendancy to the presidency in 1945 after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One gets the sense that Truman was the last president of an earlier and simpler time in America. He was the last president who was not a college graduate nor was he well--off financially. Ferrell's biography captures the essence of what type of a man Truman was and what history and his fellow citizens perceived him as.
"A plain-speaking, straight-talking, ordinary fellow (people thought) who did what he saw as his duty without turning his obligation into opportunity for personal gain" (179). Ferrell also exposed Truman's flaws such as being overprotective and too loyal to friends that had done wrong. Often he took it as a personal affront when anyone differed with him.
Ferrell presents a few experiences from Truman's early years that formed his character. From farming, Truman gained a work ethic that served him well throughout his life. His experience as an artillery captain and battery commander during WWI was instrumental in proving to himself and others that he was a very capable and caring leader of men. This experience was instrumental in putting him on the path of a political life. His experience as a failed haberdasher and bank speculator in the 1920's caused Truman to be a fiscal conservative the rest of his life and a good steward of the government's money. In addition, he learned about and came to understand and respect ethnic minorities, such as Catholics and Jews, from his Army and haberdashery experiences. Thus, Ferrell astutely proved that understanding Truman's early life experiences are instrumental if one wants to properly analyze Truman's decision-making process in the domestic and foreign policy arena.
"The Buck Stops Here" placard on Truman's desk has become legendary in presidential history. One of his secretaries of state, Dean Acheson, admired Truman for capably understanding the complexities of a situation and his willingness to make a hard decision without vacillating. Truman was adept at gathering all of the facts in a timely manner, listening to people's opinions and turning the options over in his mind, and then when he arrived at what he thought was the correct decision, he made it and stuck to his guns. Truman wound up making many important decisions that have affected America to this day such as, using nuclear weapons against Japan to end WWII, integrating the military in 1948, recognizing the state of Israel, creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and involving American military forces in the Korean war.
One of the first, most momentous, and most often debated decisions that Truman had to make as President was whether to use two atomic bombs against Japan to hasten the end of WWII. Ferrell and other historians have made a very convincing argument to support Truman's decision-making process to use nuclear weapons to end the war. The Japanese military, who effectively controlled their government, were fanatics in their prosecution of the war. The Japanese people had suffered through numerous fire bombings of their cities in the months leading up to the end of the war, in which hundreds of thousands of their citizens were killed. In addition, the military had lost many battles and virtually all of its island holdings in the Pacific, and yet the government was strengthening its homeland forces and preparing for invasion instead of seriously considering surrender. Ferrell, relying on information gathered by Edward J. Drea, who wrote about the American military intelligence estimate gathered in July of 1945 mainly through the deciphering of Japanese radio traffic, showed that up to 600,000 Japanese were being prepared to fight in the event of an American invasion. Even this estimate turned out to be too low, since after the war American intelligence learned that the Japanese actually had some 900,000 prepared to fight against the invasion. American military estimates of the cost of life in the event of an invasion of the Japanese home islands were at best sketchy, and many historians who have written against the use of atomic weapons have used the unreliability of the estimates as one of their examples why Truman was wrong to use the nuclear option. However, Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar in their book, Codename Downfall, which detailed the plan to invade Japan, wrote that Truman was presented with an estimate that showed that there could be 238,000 American casualties and possibly the same number of Japanese casualties. This information coupled with the very real evidence of how tenaciously the Japanese people had fought was no myth, and convinced Truman that dropping the bombs on Japan to end the war was the right decision. One only had to look at the horrific casualty figures for American battles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa to name a few in order to understand just how fiercely the Japanese were capable of fighting. Ferrell aptly showed that Truman's decision has come under criticism throughout the years partly because of how he had stridently defended it and was so dismissive of the critics of his decision. "The president's critics, one suspects, were ready to accuse him because they did not admire other things he did or approved. They were critical because of his well-known decisiveness, which sometimes seemed offhanded" (214).
Truman, almost by necessity and circumstance, was forced to alter America's foreign policy of isolationism to one of internationalism. Truman realized the Korean War left him in a predicament. If he did not defend South Korea in the wake of North Korea's attack, he then would acquiescence to the Communist North Koreans, and ultimately the Russians. By not defending South Korea, American prestige in Asia and the world would undoubtedly would be tarnished. Yet, if he did attack, he risked a world war with the Chinese and the Russians, and ultimately a nuclear war. In light of the Truman doctrine, and America's stance on communism, Truman decided to defend South Korea. It was a widely unpopular war, which ended in a stalemate. Yet, Ferrell entertains a notion that America did not become the world superpower after WW II, but rather during the Korean War because America intervened to defend a non-communist nation, in essence, America became the police and protection force for weaker non-communist countries in the face of communist aggression. Many historians would agree that the year 1945 and the history after irreversibly changed the world. The cold war, America's role in world affairs, and the question of nuclear weapons all contributed.
Truman initially set about reorganizing the bureaucracy, conducting a complete overhaul of cabinet and staff. In addition to creating the Budget Bureau and the National Security Council, he created the Council of Economic Advisers, which he staffed it with both conservatives and liberals and regarded it as an advisory committee. Ferrell positively describes Truman's intellect, honesty, and integrity throughout the book but one of the places where it shines most brightly is in his civil rights efforts, which is rarely given the credit it deserves in historical accounts. Ferrell examines possible reasons behind Truman's change of heart on civil rights and concludes that much of his perspective came from his principled sense of fairness and his belief that the duty of the office of the President was to represent all Americans. The Truman-appointed Civil Rights Commission presented a frank report, entitled To Secure These Rights, with a ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. Lacking congressional support, he turned to the power of executive orders to start the desegregation of the armed forces.
His second administration was marred by scandals, including the Hoey Investigation, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue illegal activity, for which the president was criticized for failing to take appropriate action. Another one of Truman's domestic challenges, which cost him politically, was labor strikes. To avoid a steelworker strike, Truman invoked what he believed to be the inherent powers of the president to seize control of the mills and was rebuffed by the Supreme Court. As the 1952 election loomed, Truman bristled that the emerging Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, was distancing himself from Truman's administration. Although they reconciled and Truman even assisted with campaign speeches, it was to little avail. Eisenhower won 55 percent of the popular vote and Truman finished out his lame duck presidency.
In his post-presidency years, Truman returned to Independence and his quiet life. He solicited donations to build a presidential library, which he donated to the federal government, a convention which later presidents have followed. Likewise, he refused endorsements and placement in corporate payrolls because he believed that accepting financial opportunities would diminish the integrity of the office of President. As a result, Harry and Bess Truman lived out the remainder of their lives without the safety of financial savings. He established a precise daily routine at his library, which included writing copious amount of letters and receiving many visitors. Ever the politician, he remained connected with Washington life and accepted invitations to the White House in both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. In his final years, bothered with health problems, he took refuge in music and books. He died the day after Christmas, 1972 and was buried at his presidential library in Independence, with all the pomp and circumstance fitting a former President.

Thus, Ferrell does a very convincing job of making one believe just how important and interesting it is to study Truman, especially since he was so very different from the presidents who had come before and after him.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, foreign policy, Cold War history.

What an incredible book...I am not usually in the habit of buying books, but I couldn't resist when I saw the cover!! I am a huge Marlon Brando fan...an understatement to say the least. I have been hooked since I first watched "A Streetcar Named Desire." I don't think that there has been a more beautiful actor (and that even includes Paul Newman!) I have managed to get my hands on every Brando movie possible!! He had more than just a beautiful face though; there was a presence about him that was just mesmorizing! I get very upset when people speak of Brando's wasted talent, or what a sad joke his life has become..........we will always have his films and portraits to cherish! As it was stated in his biography, the world definitely "heard" from Marlon Brando!

This is a book you can continue to read over again. Among other books that couples should read together before getting married, like Letters to Philip, this one is gospel based.