Summer Reading

Students entering eleventh grade at SPA were required to read one of two books this summer. I did a little bit of summer reading myself during this vacation.

David McCullough
Truman
Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Truman-David-McCullough/dp/0671869205/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219420544&sr=8-1

McCullough might be the most respected popular historian in the U.S. I thoroughly enjoyed his biography of John Adams that was eventually turned into a HBO miniseries starrng Paul Giamatti. I remember seeing an interview with McCullough (might have been on the History Channel) in which he said that he was surprised by how much he enjoyed writing the section about Adams' life post presidency. (Adam lived quite long after his presidency, long enough to see his son become president in 1824) I thoroughly enjoyed that section, especially his treatment of the famed Jefferson-Adam reconciliation/correspondence. Of course it doesn't hurt that Adams may be my favorite president....

Truman is a massive tome (over 900 pages) and I finally finished it this summer. I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed. It was long on narrative and description and somewhat short on analysis -especially critical analysis. A little too often, I found myself thinking, "Why am I reading this? Why in the world is this important?"

Sometimes McCullough's style works and sometimes it doesn't. Truman is long enough to have plenty of instances where it works and plenty of instances where it doesn't work. While McCullough is largely sympathetic in his biography, he does hold his subject accountable at times and sometimes takes a moment to step outside of the narrative in order to applaud, condemn or explain Truman's actions. That helps give his account some credibility despite his obvious affection for Truman. It also helps establish the moral voice that pervades all of McCullough's works.

So, if you're interested in President Truman/the Cold War/post-World War II politics, you might want to visit or might be planning to do a research paper on any topics related to the aforementioned, you might want to get the book from the library. Even if you don't read the entire work, you can always skim (that's what my wife did), use the index or keep it around as a reference work.