Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed History: The Story of the Accidental President

Amazon Customer: Exceptionally well written, about a man who never expected to be president. Most know very little about him, but he made a number of correct, critically important decisions that affected the future of the country.

United States on Feb 17, 2024

marcia b: My parents were huge Truman fans. I now know why. This was a book club selection that I never would have read. His story is incredible! He was a common man with the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. Well worth my time to read this story.

United States on Feb 15, 2024

Amazon Customer: The book is a story that all should read and appreciate what the world was like at that time. History repeats itself because "people" don't change.

United States on Feb 01, 2024

Mark71: Awesome undertaking by Mr. Baime… a heretofore unknown (by me, in my ignorance) author of American history of times we know too little of. I found myself frequently spellbound in his writing of just these four months in the aftermath of FDR’s passing — a time in the history of the world packed with so MANY events that could have led to WWIII and the dismantling of Europe and the rest of the world as we now know it. We (the entire world), owe a great debt to Truman & his administration for their dedication to their tasks at hand.

United States on Jan 20, 2024

Edimilson Mario: Alguns jornalistas descrevem o Truman como um líder genocida que usou a bomba atômica para subjulgar um país que já tinha se rendido. É recomendável que leiam este livro para saber mais a respeito deste período; terão a oportunidade de saber mais a respeito do Presidente Acidental.

Brazil on Nov 14, 2022

Ken M: Readable

Canada on Sep 29, 2022

Amazon Customer: The paper and print quality is so bad... Brown paper with such a light print that it's so hard to read. The print is also not at all clear.

Regret buying. Returned immediately.

These Indian editions are unfortunately made with such poor quality. How do these publishers get away with this?

India on Feb 07, 2021

Bill Hughes: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog!” That was just one of Harry S. Truman’s more memorable lines. The man from Larmar, Missouri, a farmer’s son, had plenty more like that one. Truman, to put it in the popular lexicon, was a straight shooter from the old school. He knew how to cut to the chase and get things done.

During WWI, Truman, at age 33, served as an artillery officer for Battery D company He saw action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. At war’s end, he was discharged with the rank of captain, much respected and admired by his troops, most of whom were “Irish and German Catholics.” One of them, “Eddie McKim, became one of Truman’s lifelong friends,” the author A. J. Baime writes.

Baime described Truman this way: “He was the prototypical ordinary man. He had no college degree and never had enough money to own his own home.” For a while he even lived in his mother-in-law’s home, who “never liked Harry very much.”

Baime’s book, published in 2017, is entitled: “The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World.” Those “four months” turned out to be truly...

United States on Aug 07, 2020

Johnoc: This isn't a biography from cradle to the grave, which,lets be honest -spend too many pages on tedious stuff, this mainly covers a few months when Truman went from not even a household name in his family to the most powerful man on the planet taking momentous decisions almost daily.

In his first four months of his presidency he had seen Germany defeated, spent days horse trading with Churchill and Stalin (one of them would have been too much for most politicians) on what Europe would look like post-war and give permission to drop two nuclear bombs that forced Japan to surrender. Throw in the first seeds about the state of Israel being created and Truman's decisions still have huge consequences today.

Throw in the fact he never wanted to be President and his wife hated the idea all the while he was in office nakes the title completely accurate of someone who was thrust into office and power and judging by this book did a pretty good job under circumstances probably no world leader had seen before or since.

United Kingdom on Apr 27, 2020

Rule 62 Ken: Harry Truman's selection as Franklin Roosevelt's running mate in 1944 was a big surprise to everyone, including Truman himself. Roosevelt was in poor health and was not expected to live out his term and the nation was still fighting a two front war. Truman, a former haberdasher and failed businessman from Missouri, did not inspire confidence as a replacement for the iconic FDR at such a precarious time in history. When Roosevelt died in April of 1945, Truman told reporters that it "felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."

Longtime Wall Street Journal contributor A. J. Baime tells the story of Harry Truman's remarkable transition from county politician to leader of the free world in The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months that Changed the World. This is a remarkably well-researched account of the beginning of the Truman Presidency and the end of the Second World War, a war that was ended by the most controversial wartime decision likely made by any president: the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan in August of 1945.

Baime begins with an accounting of the day that Vice-President Truman became President...

Canada on Jan 27, 2018