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Title: The Year of Indecision, 1946
Subtitle: A Tour Through the Crucible of Harry Truman's America
Author: Kenneth Weisbrode
Narrator: Jonathan Hogan
Format: Unabridged
Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
Language: English
Release date: 03-01-16
Publisher: Recorded Books
Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: History, American
Publisher's Summary:
In 1946, America had just exited the biggest war in modern history and was about to enter another of a kind no one had fought before. We think of this moment as the brilliant start of America Triumphant, in world politics and economics.
But the reality is murkier: 1946 brought tension between industry and labor, political disunity, bad veteran morale, housing crises, inflation, a Soviet menace - all shadowed by an indecisiveness that would plague decision makers who would waffle between engagement and isolation as the country itself pivoted between prosperity and retrenchment through the rest of the century.
The Year of Indecision, 1946 overturns the image of Truman as a can-do leader - 1946, in fact, marked a nadir in his troubled presidency. Relations broke down with the Soviet Union and nearly did with the British. The United States suffered shortages and strikes of a magnitude it had not seen in years. In November 1946 the Democrats lost both houses of Congress. The tension between fear and optimism expressed itself too in popular culture. Americans rejoiced in talent and creative energy, but a shift was brewing: Bing Crosby making room for Bill Haley and B. B. King, John Wayne for Montgomery Clift. That year also saw a burst of spirit in literature, music, art, and film - beneath the shadow of noir.
The issues and tensions we face today echo those of seven decades ago. As we observe in this portrait of the era just before our own, as America learned, piecemeal and reluctantly, to act like a world power, it tried - and succeeded only partially - to master fear. Indecision, Weisbrode argues, is the leitmotif of American history.
Members Reviews:
A painting of 1946, with words
As opposed to a conventional history book, Weisbrode has written a lengthy historical essay that provides an overview of 1946, which was essentially Americaâs first full transition year that carried it from the end of WWII to a regular peacetime nation; the key word her is âoverview.â Rather than a historical work that has a narrative thread through the chapters, the author looks at a number of issues he believes are key to understanding 1946.
The first few chapters of the book essentially set the stage by describing the environment which existed. Chapter 1, âThe Uprooted,â looks at the millions of Americans returning from war; their families; their hopes; and how the war had changed them. Chapter 2, âHarry Who?â provides an overview of the president; a man thrust unintentionally into the limelight by the death of Franklin Roosevelt, and who, all of a sudden, found himself dealing with a number of crucial issues just as WWII ended and the world significantly began to change and transition from war. The third chapter, âEmpire Men,â reviews the political and bureaucratic leadership that Roosevelt brought to Washington during the New Deal period and who provided his leadership during WWII; it was these men that Truman inherited, and who provided continuity in 1946.
Weisbrode then goes on to describe the issues, chapter-by-chapter that dominated America during 1946 from technology in a post-atom bomb world, to the evolution of a new foreign policy dynamic as the Cold War began, to a clashing political spectrum that had been limited due to wartime constraints, to the economy.
