Robert H. Ferrell, a Truman scholar and World War I historian, died on August 8. He was 97.
Ferrell wrote and edited 11 books about Harry S. Truman, many of which used material that had previously been unpublished, the New York Times reported. The first was Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (1980). Others included the bestseller Dear Bess (1983), consisting of hundreds of letters that Truman wrote to his wife between 1910 and 1959, which "provided a record of their devoted marriage and his life as a farmer, haberdasher, county judge in Missouri, United States senator from Missouri, vice president and president." In 1994, he published a deeply researched biography, Harry S. Truman: A Life.
Altogether Ferrell wrote or edited 60 books, "largely about American diplomacy, war and presidents," the Times said. "He had an abiding fascination with World War I--in which his father fought--and with the diaries of statesmen and soldiers. But once initiated into Truman's world, Mr. Ferrell kept returning. He spent so much time at the Truman library that he rented an apartment in Independence."