With contributions from the most accomplished scholars in the field, this fascinating companion to one of America's pivotal presidents assesses Harry S. Truman as a historical figure, politician, president and strategist. Assembles many of the top historians in their fields who assess critical aspects of the Truman presidency. Provides new approaches to the historiography of Truman and his policies. Features a variety of historiographic methodologies.

Table of Contents

• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction - Daniel S. Margolies
• Part I Considering Truman in Historical Perspective
• 1 Truman in Historical, Popular, and Political Memory - Sean J. Savage
• 2 Rhetoric and Style of Truman's Leadership - Steven Casey
• Part II Enduring Questions
• 3 Anxieties of Empire and the Truman Administration - Jeremi Suri
• 4 Harry S. Truman and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb - Sean L. Malloy
• 5 The Origins of the Cold War in International Perspective - Amanda Kay McVety
• Part III Truman, the State, and the World System
• 6 Exporting the American Experience: Global Economic Governance and the Foreign Economic Policy of the Truman Administration - Francine McKenzie
• 7 NSC-68 and the National Security State - Curt Cardwell
• 8 Strategists and Rhetoricians: Truman's Foreign Policy Advisers - Benjamin A. Coates
• Part IV The Truman Presidency and the Shaping of Postwar American Society
• 9 Truman, Reconversion, and the Emergence of the Post-World War II Consumer Society - Susannah Walker
• 10 The Fair Deal - Jason Scott Smith
• 11 The Election of 1948 - Dean J. Kotlowski
• 12 The Truman Administration and the Public Policy of Civilian Defense: Making the Best of a Nightmare - Andrew D. Grossman
• 13 The Environmental History of the Truman Years, 1945-53 - Mark Harvey
• 14 Truman and Civil Rights - Jeffrey L. Littlejohn and Charles H. Ford
• Part V Trumans Foreign Policy
• 15 Great Britain and American Hegemony - Kathleen Britt Rasmussen
• 16 The Truman Doctrine - Elizabeth Edwards Spalding
• 17 Harry S. Truman and the Marshall Plan - Robert H. Landrum
• 18 Truman and the Middle East - Kelly J. Shannon
• 19 Harry S. Truman's Latin American Policy - Michael Donoghue
• 20 Truman and NATO - Stephanie Trombley Averill
• 21 Truman, the United Nations, and the Origins of the Postwar World Order - Robert McGreevey
• 22 The Truman Administration and Cold War Neutrals - T. Michael Ruddy
• 23 The Legacies of Nuremberg in International Law and American Policy - Jinee Lokaneeta
• Part VI America and the Postwar Pacific Rim
• 24 The Occupation of Japan: A History of Its Histories - Hiroshi Kitamura
• 25 The Birth of a Rivalry: Sino-American Relations During the Truman Administration - Gregg Brazinsky
• 26 Conflicts in Korea - James I. Matray
• 27 Setting the Pattern: The Truman Administration and Southeast Asia - Mark Atwood Lawrence
• References
• Further Reading