True Believer

A 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards Longlisted Title in Biography

“Compelling… Traub has rendered here a sensitive, vivid and sometimes poignant portrait of a political crusader.”

“A brisk, engaging biography of Humphrey with an urgent underlying message for today’s liberals.”

“Deft and thoughtful… Traub argues that studying the life of Humphrey—the late mayor of Minneapolis, senator, and vice president—is instructive, cautionary, and inspiring. His thesis is correct on all three counts.”

“Readers who want to dive deep into Humphrey's world will appreciate Traub's thorough reporting… It's at its best when bringing history to life with fascinating anecdotes.”

“Perceptive and beautifully written.”

“Excellent… Brings the spirit of Humphrey’s politics to life in ways that go beyond a simple tally of his achievements and failings.”

“An immensely readable biography that manages to move beyond nostalgia to remind us of the complex personal and psychological tensions such a politics imparted to its ‘true believers.’”

“In the mode of Robert Caro… This corrective, vivid biography expands readers' knowledge of Humphrey.”

“A welcome resurrection of the life of an often-forgotten but significant political figure… An astute analysis of one of the last New Dealers.”

“In True Believer, Traub traces not just Hubert Humphrey’s life but the rise and fall of mid-20th century liberalism with all of its courage, promise, triumphs, contradictions, compromises, limitations, and myopic insufficiencies exemplified in the talents, fortunes, and failures of one man.”

"A masterful biography of Hubert Humphrey that presents him as a fascinating, three-dimensional figure, not the cardboard cutout later generations may know."

“An admiring biography of firebrand politician Hubert Humphrey.”

“A flattering look at a liberal political figure. Fans of American political history will appreciate this one.”

“Hubert Humphrey’s life precisely overlapped the rise and fall of big-government liberalism as the dominant creed in American politics. James Traub’s wise and absorbing biography of Humphrey never stints in crediting him with helping shape that political moment, and never flinches from showing how little he was able to do to resist its passing. True Believer brings to life an unjustly forgotten politician and reminds us that it is possible for a politician to be an honorable and good-hearted person.”

“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.”

“Traub is known as both an exemplary political biographer and an astute analyst of American liberalism. Both sets of talents are on display in True Believer, which brilliantly captures Humphrey, midcentury liberalism’s most powerful public champion—with all his righteousness, decency, and hunger to improve regular people’s lives, but also his struggles and failures. The triumphs and tragedy of Humphrey, Traub shows us in this compulsively readable story, are also those of liberalism itself.”