Good evening and welcome to our show.

Tonight I want to reference two books by the author A.J.

Baime, a writer I first learned of during a Happy New Year telephone conversation with a long time friend and colleague from my day at the University of Missouri.

Thanks Tim.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

A.J.

Baime is an American author journalist, and public speaker.

He is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, and he is a former editor at Boston, Maxim and Playboy magazines.

He is currently a contributing editor at Road and Track magazine.

Baime was born and raised in suburban new Jersey, and he earned a B.A.

from the University of New Hampshire in 1994 and an M.A.

from New York University in 1997.

The 2009 book that launched Baime's career as an author was Go Like Hell, which covers the Ford v Ferrari rivalry in the 1960s, and this book was developed into the 2019 movie starrin Matt Damon and Christian Bale.

Very good movie, by the way.

In 2014 Baime published The Arsenal of Democracy and his book The Accidental President was copyrighted in 2017.

I really enjoyed these last two books and I want to share them with you.

If you are interested in American history, world history, airplanes, automobiles, the American worker, racial division, politics, leadership, and the office of the President and just plain good writing.

I think you will enjoy them as well.

The Arsenal of Democracy is subtitled FDR, Detroit and an Epic Quest to Arm in America at War.

As Baime points out in his introduction.

This book is about many things.

It is about World War II.

It's about the rise of air power, and apocalyptic scienc when applied to military action.

It's about an American President confined to a wheelchair, who sought to teach the world how to walk again during the Great Depression, only to find himself facing a losing war against unconscionable evil.

It's about Detroit, the biggest wartime boomtown of all, and its automobile industry, which in 1941 had a bigger economy than any foreign nation except Britain, France, German and possibly the Soviet Union.

Ultimately, this book is about a father and son who, more than any other figures in the first half of the 20th century, symbolized Americanism all over the world.

Their love, their empire and the war that tore them apart.

The Accidental President is subtitled Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World.

This book addresses the early years of Truman' upbringing and life in Missouri and his quiet, improbable run to the white House.

Using declassified war documents, personal diaries, air national communications of the highest diplomacy, and other primary sources, Baime sheds light on the ma and his accidental presidency.

As name suggests, the first four months of Truman's administration should rank as the most challenging and action packed of any four month period in any American presidency.

Arguably, no other four month period has had so much importance in shaping the world we live in today.

I really appreciated learnin more about the man from Missouri and his personal attributes that helped him accomplish so much under such difficult and trying circumstances.

That's our show.

Tonight, We have featured the author A.J.

Baime and two of his books, The Arsenal of Democracy and The Accidental President.

I really enjoyed these books, and while I cannot give the books their full due in the time we have, I hope to pay it forward by speaking to these two books on tonight's show.

See you next time.