Author Talk: “True Believer: Hubert Humphrey and The Quest For A More Just America” by James Traub
Celebrated historian James Traub’s strikingly relevant new book True Believer recounts Hubert Humphrey’s role as twentieth-century American liberalism’s most-dedicated defender and its most-public and tragic sacrifice. It reveals a deep-dyed idealist willing to compromise and even fight ugly in pursuit of a better society.
As a young politician in 1948, he defied segregationists and forced the Democratic Party to commit to civil rights. As a senator in 1964, he helped pass the Civil Rights Act. But as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president, his support for the war in Vietnam angered both Right and Left. Though Humphrey’s shattering loss in the presidential election of 1968 was widely seen as the end of America’s era of liberal optimism, he never gave up, crafting a new vision of economic justice to counter the yawning political divisions consuming American politics.
James Traub has spent many years as a journalist for America’s leading publications, including the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine. He now teaches foreign policy and intellectual history at NYU Abu Dhabi and writes for Foreign Policy. He has authored eight previous books on foreign and domestic affairs.
Mr. Traub will be introduced by and in conversation with Bradford D. Martin, author of The Other 80s, who has deep roots in Cornwall. The talk will be followed by a book signing.
“Compelling… Traub has rendered here a sensitive, vivid and sometimes poignant portrait of a political crusader.”—Wall Street Journal
“A brisk, engaging biography of Humphrey with an urgent underlying message for today’s liberals”
—New York Times Book Review
“The best biographies offer not only a portrait of a fascinating historical figure—but also a window into their era and a mirror that helps us understand our own. Traub’s True Believer succeeds on all three counts. It is a riveting account of one of the greatest presidents America never had.”―Yascha Mounk, author of The Great Experiment
In-person attendance only at the Cornwall Library (no Zoom). Registration is required.