we are very pleased to have david pietrusza with us this morning to talk about his latest book, "1948: harry truman's improbable victory and the year that transformed america." david is the author of a number of books. he's been here to talk in the past about his book about arnold rothstein, about the book of 1920, the year of six presidents, 1960, lbj versus jfk versus nixon, silent pal's almanac, the homespun wit of virginia's calvin coolidge and "ted williams: my life in pictures." he's also written and produced a documentary "local heroes: baseball in capital district diamonds." reviews for his harry truman book talk about how lively it is, illuminating portraits of four candidates and the even-handed appraisal of truman is especially compelling. the journey that he takes to get us to election day is one that he has definitively become the best at leading. in the past, his work has been compared to theodore white's classic "the making of the presidents" series. after three straight home runs, i think pietrusza is the undisputed champion of chronicling americans' presidential campa

. >> up next on history bookshelf, david pietrusza discussed his book "1948, harry truman's improbable victory and the year that transformed america" scliebing the political climate surrounding the election and the main players in the campaign. this was recorded at the clifton park halfmoon library in clifton, new york. it's about an hour, 10 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to the clifton park-halfmoon public library. we're very pleased to have david pietrusza here to talk about his new book "1948" the year that transformed america. david is the author of a number of books. he's been here in the past to talk about his book about arnold rothstein, 1960, lbj versus jfk versus nixon. the homespun wit and wisdom of calvin coolidge, and ted williams, my life in pictures. he's also written and produced a documentary, local heroes, baseball in capital district dimes. reviewed for his harry truman book talk about how lively it is, illuminating portraits of four candidates and the even handed appraisal of truman is especially compelling. the journey that he takes to get us to electi

ladies and gentlemen, david pietrusza. pietrusza. . thank you natalie and it's great to be back here again. the question that people always ask me about my books is, why did you write this book? and americans claim to hate politics, but we love the elections. we love sports. my sports background, your sports background, the whole country is crazy about it. we love the competition. we love the 162 games series and things going down to the 7th game of the world series. we love the home run and we love bill buckner and pookie wilson. 1948 is one of those bill black mayor moment in elections. elections. this is when the underdog comes back and pulls out what everyone has written. that is harry truman's improbable victory. that is the year, that is the election that was the great iconic comeback, the great surprise, the great surprise when the pundits are proven so spectacularly wrong. that is another thing we love her kuwait love to be smarter than all the guys you see on tv and who are writing in the newspaper columns and harry turman, wh

we've brought back one of our first guests, david pietrusza, who is joining us still on the plaza of the supreme court. and david, one aspect of his life we have not spent any time on and we should is his term as secretary of state in these pivotal post-world war i years. can you talk about the contributions he made in that role? >> absolutely. he's regarded not only as one of the great chief justices he's regarded as one of the great secretaries of state. when he leaves, he's regarded as one of the top three. john quincy adams, secretary seward as has been mentioned before and himself. what he does is he inherits really a great mess, because of the failure of the league of nations and talking about him in international affairs and international law, he was for the league of nations, for the american -- the united states of america to enter the league. but he was not about to cede sovereignty to the league of nations. he was opposed to article 10 of the league of nations. which committed the united states to basically go to war if the league decided we were going to defend boundaries

. >>> up next on "history bookshelf," david pietrusza discusses his book "1948" harry truman's improbable victory and the year that transformed america. the author describes harry truman's political career, the political climate surrounding the 1948 election and the main players in the campaign. he also takes questions from the audience. this was recorded at the clifton park-halfmoon public library in clifton park, new york. it's been an hour ten minutes.

. >> david pietrusza, let's have, have you explain about his final years. he resigns from the court, as we just said, in 1941, and lives until the next five or six years, dies at the age of 86. what were his final years like? >> well, he's very old when he goes on the court and he's very old when he gets off the court. two years before he gets off the court he gets a real scare. it was almost like a stroke. in fact, it's a duodenal ulcer. but he recovers. when he leaves the court in '41, he's fairly vigorous. what does happen, however, he remains -- he doesn't return to new york. his children are up there. but he remains in washington, d.c. he had been -- you know, his marriage was really a very close one, very wonderful. but at this point he decided, i'm going to make up for lost time, a time which i had been away from my wife all this time. but she takes ill fairly quickly. i think by the end of the war, she has passed away. and it's a very tragic time for him. it's one of the few times which is ever recorded him of losing control of his emotions when she