Revealing the little-known facts of Harry Truman's remarkable military performance, as a soldier and as a politician, The Soldier from Independence adds a whole new dimension to the already fascinating character of the thirty-third president of the United States. D. M. Giangreco shows how, as a field artillery battery commander in World War I, Truman was already making the hard decisions that he knew to be right, regardless of personal consequences. Truman oversaw the conclusion of the Second World War, stood up to Stalin, and met the test of North Korea's invasion of the South. He also had the fortitude to defy Gen. Douglas MacArthur, one of America's most revered wartime leaders, and ultimately fired the Far East commander, often characterized as the American Caesar. Filling in the details behind these world-changing events, this military biography supplies a heretofore missing--and critical--chapter in the story of one of the nation's most important presidents. The Soldier from Independence recounts the World War I military adventure that would mark a turning point in the life of a humble man who would go on to become commander in chief.

Depicts the military career of Harry S. Truman, the future thirty-third president of the United States, during World War I.

Harry S. Truman was Commander-in-Chief at one of the (if not the) critical moments in American--and global--military history: when the decision had to be made to drop the Bomb. As to his military credentials, however, he is often dismissed as little more than a weekend warrior, the Kansas City haberdasher. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth, as this book makes clear. Revealing the little-known facts of Truman’s remarkable military performance--as a soldier and as a politician--The Soldier from Independence adds a whole new dimension to the already fascinating character of the thirty-third president of the United States. Author Dennis Giangreco shows how, as a field artillery battery commander in World War I, Truman was already making the hard decisions that he knew to be right, regardless of personal consequences. Giangreco describes how Truman saved a neighboring infantry regiment from a surprise German attack, only to be rebuked by his regimental commander. Truman would have been court martialed, which certainly would have derailed any future career in politics, but for the intervention of commander of American forces in France General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing. The book also recounts Truman’s activities as head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee during the build-up to and early years of WWII--activities that made him the most powerful man in military affairs next to President Roosevelt. Truman oversaw the end of the war, stood up to Stalin, and met the test of North Korea’s invasion of the south. He also had the fortitude to stand up to General Douglas MacArthur, one of America’s most revered wartime leaders, and ultimately fired the Far East commander who has been characterized as the American Caesar. Filling in the details behind these world-changing events, this military biography supplies a heretofore missing--and critical--chapter in the story of one of the nation’s most important presidents.

Long considered a classic in Bolivia, Juan de la Rosa tells the story of a young boy's coming of age during the violent and tumultuous years of Bolivia's struggle for independence. Indeed, in this remarkable novel, Juan's search for his personal identity functions as an allegory of Bolivia's search for its identity as a nation. Set in the early 1800s, the novel is narrated by one of the last surviving Bolivian rebels, octogenarian Juan de la Rosa. Juan recreates his childhood in the rebellious town of Cochabamba, and with it a large cast of full bodied, Dickensian characters both heroic and malevolent. The larger cultural dislocations brought about by Bolivia's political upheaval are echoed in those experienced by Juan, whose mother's untimely death sets off a chain of unpredictable events that propel him into the fiery crucible of the South American Independence Movement. Outraged by Juan's outspokenness against Spanish rule and his awakening political consciousness, his loyalist guardians banish him to the countryside, where he witnesses firsthand the Spaniards' violent repression and rebels' valiant resistance that crystallize both his personal destiny and that of his country. In Sergio Gabriel Waisman's fluid translation, English readers have access to Juan de la Rosa for the very first time.

Young Continental soldiers carried a heavy burden in the American Revolution. Their experiences of coming of age during the upheavals of war provide a novel perspective on the Revolutionary era, eliciting questions of gender, family life, economic goals, and politics. "Going for a soldier" forced young men to confront profound uncertainty, and even coercion, but also offered them novel opportunities. Although the war imposed obligations on youths, military service promised young men in their teens and early twenties alternate paths forward in life. Continental soldiers’ own youthful expectations about respectable manhood and their goals of economic competence and marriage not only ordered their experience of military service; they also shaped the fighting capacities of George Washington’s army and the course of the war. Becoming Men of Some Consequence examines how young soldiers and officers joined the army, their experiences in the ranks, their relationships with civilians, their choices about quitting long-term military service, and their attempts to rejoin the flow of civilian life after the war. The book recovers young soldiers’ perspectives and stories from military records, wartime letters and journals, and postwar memoirs and pension applications, revealing how revolutionary political ideology intertwined with rational calculations and youthful ambitions. Its focus on soldiers as young men offers a new understanding of the Revolutionary War, showing how these soldiers’ generational struggle for their own independence was a profound force within America’s struggle for its independence.

Joseph Plumb Martin (1760 – 1850) was a soldier in the Continental Army and Connecticut Militia during the American Revolutionary War, holding the rank of private for most of the war. His published narrative of his experiences has become a valuable resource for historians in understanding the conditions of a common soldier of that era, as well as the battles in which Martin participated. "My intention is to give a succinct account of some of my adventures, dangers and sufferings during my several campaigns in the revolutionary army." Contents: Campaign of 1776. Campaign of 1777. Campaign of 1778. Campaign of 1779. Campaign of 1780. Campaign of 1781. Campaign of 1782. Campaign of 1783.

This book was written to explore the contribution of Revolutionary War veterans to the founding of the American republic. By veterans, we mean all those who served in the Continental and state forces, on land or sea. Twenty three of those veterans were among the men who signed the Constitution in Philadelphia on 17 September 1787. That document, as the eminent American historian Samuel Eliot Morison put it, is "a work of genius, since it set up what every earlier political scientist had thought impossible, a sovereign union of sovereign states. This reconciling of unity with diversity, this practical application of the federal principle, is undoubtedly the most original contribution of the United States to the history and technique of human liberty."