True Believer

Starred review from December 15, 2023
A welcome resurrection of the life of an often-forgotten but significant political figure. Veteran journalist Traub, author of What Was Liberalism? and The Freedom Agenda, delivers a memorable, admiring portrait of Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978). Son of a small-town South Dakota pharmacist, Humphrey graduated high school as the class valedictorian. After dropping out of college during the Depression, he returned a few years later to complete three years of classwork in two years. He also worked in a drug store to support himself and his family, and he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota. In graduate school, thesis advisers extolled his intelligence, enthusiasm, and charisma and suggested that politics would be a better fit than academia. He became a rising force in the Democratic Party, and in 1945, he "became the youngest person ever elected as mayor of Minneapolis." He made headlines during the 1948 Democratic National Convention, fighting successfully to substitute a strong civil rights plank for the usual platitudes. President Harry Truman tried to discourage this approach; southerners hated it and formed the Dixiecrat Party, which, pundits agreed, guaranteed Truman's defeat. Traub agrees with most scholars that Humphrey's effort helped in the north more than it hurt in the south. Elected senator by a landslide in 1948, he proposed many liberal reforms. Working with his mentor Lyndon Johnson, he was able to pass some of them. Yearning for the presidency, Humphrey worked hard to become vice president as a means of obtaining the funds, nationwide organization, and visibility necessary for a campaign. Assuming the vice presidency in 1964, he was marginalized, exerting little influence over the U.S.'s disastrous involvement in Vietnam. Concluding this highly readable biography, Traub suggests that it was not rising conservatism but the antiwar movement that assured Humphrey's defeat in 1968. An astute analysis of one of the last New Dealers.

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January 15, 2024
Journalist Traub (What Was Liberalism?) offers an admiring biography of firebrand politician Hubert Humphrey (1911–1978). Raised in a small South Dakota community, Humphrey attended the University of Minnesota. In 1945, he became the mayor of Minneapolis, and his considerable support of the city’s oppressed Black and Jewish communities made him a national liberal figure. In 1948, his impassioned speech at the Democratic National Convention led to the party’s adoption of a vigorous civil rights platform, despite the opposition of the Truman administration. That same year, Humphrey won a seat in the U.S. Senate, where he was eventually lead author of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Elected vice president in 1964, Humphrey had a fraught relationship with President Lyndon Johnson, who “wanted a servant, not a copilot.” Humphrey’s support for the war in Vietnam tarnished his progressive legacy and contributed to his 1968 presidential election defeat by Richard Nixon, according to Traub, who leaves no doubt of his affection for his subject—he describes Humphrey as not only “extraordinary” and “abundantly gifted,” but “profoundly good.” Detailed coverage of Humphrey’s career after he left the Senate makes this a valuable complement to Samuel G. Freedman’s Into the Bright Sunshine, which focused on the previous periods of the politician’s life.

February 1, 2024
Journalist Traub offers a complete account of Hubert Humphrey's life and times, nearly in the mode of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, though in one volume. Humphrey's parents, marriage to Muriel, and early life in South Dakota before he and Muriel moved to Minnesota instilled in him compassion and liberalism. These traits shaped his political career as mayor of Minneapolis, U.S. senator, Lyndon Johnson's vice-president, and senator again after losing the 1968 presidential election. Traub brings every detail to life, from South Dakota dust storms to the stale, cigarette-filled summer air at the 1948 Democratic convention in Philadelphia, where Humphrey's networking and passionate speech moved the Democratic Party ahead in the struggle for civil rights. Traub frankly describes Humphrey's liabilities: his verbosity, support for the Vietnam War, and compromises after Johnson's many humiliations. Yet Traub also reveals that, despite Johnson's bullying when they served in the Senate, Humphrey learned Johnson's legislative wizardry and pushed much of the civil rights legislation that is credited to Johnson through Congress. Humphrey, not Kennedy, introduced the legislation to create the Peace Corps. This corrective, vivid biography expands readers' knowledge of Humphrey and chronicles how hard work and idealism can make things better.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2024

Award-winning journalist Traub (foreign policy and intellectual history, NYU Abu Dhabi; Judah Benjamin) explores the life of politician Hubert Humphrey. He started his career by running for mayor of Minneapolis; eventually became a two-term U.S. senator representing Minnesota; and served as the country's 38th vice president, during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Traub focuses on their fraught relationship and how Johnson tended to overshadow and belittle Humphrey. Throughout his career, Humphrey, known for his promotion of liberal values and tendencies towards compromise, campaigned for civil rights, nuclear disarmament, and labor rights. He ran for president several times, but the changing opinions of the electorate and ideological shifts contributed to his losses. His promotion into Democratic Party leadership led to his taking positions that were more toward the center, and many of his ideologically minded supporters grew disenchanted with him. Traub argues that Humphrey was tied to Johnson's disastrous handling of the Vietnam War, and he struggled to shake that legacy as well. VERDICT A flattering look at a liberal political figure. Fans of American political history will appreciate this one.--Rebekah Kati

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