Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure, Book Review Example

Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo (Chicago Review Press; Reprint edition, 2011. Preface, postscript, afterword, acknowledgements, sources, bibliography, index.)

Biographies are largely considered to be historical records. Although most readers would conceded that any given biography is colored by the perceptions of the individual biographer, fewer readers would readily accept the proposition that biography is a form of propaganda. However, in the case of Matthew Algeo’s Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip (2011), such an assertion is relatively easy to support. The book is ostensibly an historical narrative of how former President Harry Truman, along with Bess Truman, his wife, took a long road journey in the summer of nineteen fifty-two. Despite the fact that Truman left office with a twenty-two percent approval rating, the former First Couple met with nationwide friendship and support during their trek across the states. This, in brief, is the basic premise of Algeo’s book, along with peripheral themes of socioeconomic observations all meant to bolster the idea of Harry Truman as an average American, and a good-guy.

For most people, the proposition that Harry Truman was a good guy who understood the plight and spirit of the average citizen is an innocent enough proposition. It is also a proposition that appears to be adequately supported simply due to the fact that Truman and his wife were willing to take an extended road-trip around America without bodyguards or servants. In the modern era such an event is not only unlikely; it is unthinkable. In order to properly visualize Algeo’s thesis it is crucial to understand the way in which Algeo connects nostalgia for a bygone era with veneration or “image rebuilding” of Truman as an historical figure. A recent American President, George W. Bush, is popularly perceived to be as unlikable and as ineffective as Truman was perceived to be when he left office. It is difficult to imagine anyone writing an endearing biographical narrative about Bush that would convince the average American and this is because the memory of Bush’s actual Presidency are still fresh in the public mind. In fact, it could be argued that in some ways Algeo’s book is taking advantage of the cover that the failed Bush presidency has given for the potential historical rehabilitation of Truman’s image.

If this is the case, then Algeo’s romp through a time when gas was cheap, American factories were booming, and even republicans like Truman wanted to slash the defense budget is not only studied but strategic. His intention is to engage the reader emotionally rather than intellectually. The book as a whole can be considered as a calculated attempt to humanize Truman and in doing cloud the broad historical recollection of Truman as a failure who was disliked by the American public. Along with the vignettes included about incidents during the road trip, Algeo includes a second prong of attack meant to present Truman as a regular guy. This prong of attack is based in the historical reality that Truman was actually financially destitute when he left the presidency. He had only his World War One soldier’s pension as an income at the time of that the road trip with Bess took place.

The book is coolly calculated but infused with warmth and emotion. That said, there is little depth or historical evidence included in the energetic recounting. The friendliness of the underlying concept of the narrative, combined with Algeo’s enthusiasm and optimism presents a very seductive package. The book is an easy read that will not tax the reader with boring statistics or weigh the reader down with accounts of sad or tragic events. These are all aspects that help to make the book fun and even to some extent informative. However, these are the same elements that cement the fact that book is better considered as propaganda that is designed to bend the perception of history rather than clarify the perception of the past. This is a very dangerous conclusion to reach because to make it is also to admit that such is the case with all historical books, films, and even documentation. The question is only of degree.