On June 19, 1953, Harry Truman did something no other former president has done before, or since: he hit the road. No Secret Service protection. Just Harry and Bess, off to visit old friends, take in a Broadway play, and celebrate their wedding anniversary in the Big Apple. Hopefully incognito.

"Primarily a contest between Truman and challenger Thomas Dewey, the 1948 presidential race offered something for everyone, including two third-party candidates (Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace), triumphant grit, tragic hubris, dangerous naiveté, accidents of fate, accusations of betrayal, foreign crises, the birth of Israel in the Middle East, a dramatic special session of Congress, internecine battles among unions and liberals, spies, extremists...

"From the New York Times best-selling author of The Accidental President comes the thrilling story of the 1948 presidential election, one of the greatest election stories of all time, as Truman mounted a history-making comeback and staked a claim for a new course for America."--

Months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the United States was on the verge of entering another world war for which it was dangerously ill-prepared. The urgent times demanded a transformation of the economy, with the government bankrolling the unfathomably expensive task of enlisting millions of citizens while also producing the equipment necessary to successfully fight—all of which opened up opportunities for graft, fraud and...

April 12, 1945: After years of bloody conflict in Europe and the Pacific, America is stunned by news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt?s death. In an instant, Vice President Harry Truman, who has been kept out of war planning and knows nothing of the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the world?s first atomic bomb, must assume command of a nation at war on multiple continents?and confront one of the most consequential decisions in history. Countdown...

"From master storyteller and historian H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world. When asked by a reporter about the possible use of atomic weapons in response to China's...

"The year was 1947. The Soviet Union had moved from being America's uneasy ally in the Second World War to its most feared enemy. With Joseph Stalin's ambitions pushing westward, Turkey was pressured from the east while communist revolutionaries overran Greece. The British Empire was battered from its war with Hitler and suddenly teetering on the brink of financial ruin. Only America could afford to defend freedom in the West, and the effort was spearheaded...