4/5

The best president we never had. Freedman paints an endearing and cozy picture of HH’s younger days. Humphrey, like Keynes or Louis Jordan, embodies the Zietgeist of the mid-century to me in his own unique and prairie mannered ways. His sudden appearance in national politics in his 30s is certainly inspiring as someone who also yearns for work in public service. I still find it hard to totally buy that the Civil Rights turn of the Democrats was driven largely by great power competition with the Soviets, but the number of primary source documents presented hear point directly to that conclusion.