KANSAS CITY, MO– Steve Drummond is the winner of the 2024 Harry S. Truman Book Award, the Truman Library Institute announced today. Drummond won for his 2023 book, The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two (Hanover Square Press). The honor carries with it a $5,000 cash award.

The Truman Library Institute’s review committee praised Drummond for his “vital and enjoyable contribution” to the historical literature by illuminating an overlooked chapter of Harry Truman’s political life.

“Drummond’s book grabs the reader from the very beginning—with the dramatic story of the sinking of the SS Schenectady—and then carries us through the ways in which then-Senator Truman worked diligently and in a bipartisan manner to ensure that similar disasters could be averted,” said Jason C. Parker, committee chair and professor of history at Texas A&M University.

“We see the development of the traits that shaped Truman’s subsequent presidency, but Drummond effectively draws our attention to the crucial, if largely forgotten, role that Truman’s service in Congress played: helping to ensure that U.S. industry could create the caliber of ships and equipment that the nation and its allies would need to win the Second World War,” Parker said. “With that, Drummond forces the reader to discard the myth of U.S. industry spontaneously coming together and becoming an effective ‘arsenal of democracy.’”

Drummond is an award-winning senior editor and executive producer at NPR in Washington, D.C., where he has been a senior editor for more than two decades. He teaches journalism at the University of Maryland.

“It’s a wonderful honor to receive this award, especially given the amazing authors who’ve won in the past and the impressive writers and scholars whose books were entered this year,” Steve Drummond said. “I hope it brings worthy recognition of the wartime contributions of Harry Truman and the public servants who worked so hard on the Truman Committee.”

Established in 1967, the Harry S. Truman Book Award recognizes the best book published within a two-year period dealing primarily and substantially with the life or career of Harry S. Truman between 1945-1953. Recent awardees include Christian F. Ostermann, Derek Leebaert, Kevin Peraino and Michael Neiberg.

The Truman Library Institute will host Drummond on September 18, 2024 for a public event and book signing in Kansas City, Missouri. Registration for the free public program will open August 1, 2024 at TrumanLibraryInstitute.org/events.

The Harry S. Truman Book Award is presented biennially and is generously endowed by Mary and John Hunkeler.

Read an excerpt from The Watchdog here.

 

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