The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of racism and violence, specifically wartime atrocities.

Baime repeatedly points out the contrast between the world Harry Truman grew up in and the one he inherited as president. He points out that the conditions of his childhood “made the year 1945 seem like the wildest imaginings of the most apocalyptic philosophers. There were no machines in 1884—no airplanes, no motorcars. When Harry was a child, the loudest noises he would hear were the occasional thunder crack and the smack of an ax blade” (41). It may seem as though a man so rooted in the old world would be wholly incapable of managing the challenges of the new, and that was certainly the impression of many who witnessed his sudden and entirely unexpected rise to the top. While Truman was as amazed by technological developments as anyone else, the simplicity of his early life helped to root him in a set of fundamental truths that endured in spite of tremendous change, such as the need for self-discipline, the necessity of hard work, and honesty as the best guarantor of ultimate success.

It also helped Truman to cut to the heart of a problem rather than get lost in the minutiae—not that he didn’t have an eye for details, but that the details did not pull him away from the big picture and the simpler truth at its core.