Matthew Algeo, “Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip” (Chicago Review Press, 2009)

Matthew Algeo, “Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip” (Chicago Review Press, 2009)

Memorial day is coming up, and maybe you are going to take a little car trip. It might even be a “road trip,” one of the great American enterprises (which isn’t to say other folks don’t take them, but Americans can rightly say they invented this genre of fun). In 1953, Harry and Bess Truman took a road trip in a shiny new Chrysler. Without any secret service protection at all. Harry wanted to see what it was like to be a private citizen again. He did and he didn’t, as Matthew Algeo explains in his charming new book Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure. The True Story of a Great American Road Trip (Chicago Review Press, 2009). Even in those days, it was hard for ex-presidents to keep a low profile. Harry and Bess did their best, but people wanted to see them and talk to them. They did. Perhaps that’s what Harry wanted all along. It’s hard to say. But this much is sure: no American president could do anything similar today. George Bush (either one) can’t go to the store to buy a gallon of milk without his “detail,” and he probably couldn’t get fifty feet from his door without encountering a mix of well-wishers and protesters. Harry and Bess met a horde of the former and none of the latter. The presidency has changed, and so has America. Read all about it in this most readable of books. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Avsnitt(1969)

Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)

Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Ang...

14 Apr 51min

David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)

David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)

By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advocated for effective government to better the lives o...

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Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill place...

9 Apr 1h 6min

Katharine K. Wilkinson, "Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home" (Amber Lotus Publishing, 2026)

Katharine K. Wilkinson, "Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home" (Amber Lotus Publishing, 2026)

When maps come up short and the path ahead is uncertain, how do we find our way? Visionary climate leader Katharine K. Wilkinson offers a compassionate and empowering guide to navigating from ache to ...

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Eleanor Houghton, "Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes" (Bloomsbury 2026)

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Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told in this biography by the surviving witnesses to her li...

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Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great two ce...

6 Apr 1h 23min

Philip Boris Uninsky, "Invented Lives from Troubled Times: A Jewish Family’s Forms of Resilience after Surviving Pogroms, Revolution, and the Holocaust" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025)

Philip Boris Uninsky, "Invented Lives from Troubled Times: A Jewish Family’s Forms of Resilience after Surviving Pogroms, Revolution, and the Holocaust" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025)

How do people rebuild their lives after unimaginable upheaval—and what stories do they tell along the way? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with author Philip Boris Uninsky to discuss his de...

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Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)

Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)

The first in-depth exploration of the work of artist Cory Arcangel, a pioneer of DIY-new media art whose influential “hacks” subvert the confines of Big Tech. Cory Arcangel (b. 1978)—perhaps best kno...

5 Apr 43min

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