An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 - by Robert Dallek (2003)
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 - by Robert Dallek (2003)
Audiobook | English | ASIN: B002XHNOKG | 32 kHz | MP3 | ~64 kbps | 962 MB
History, Biography
History, Biography
An Unfinished Life describes the birth of the Kennedy dynasty, the complexity of Jack's early years, and the mixture of adulation and resentment that tangled his relationships with his mother, Rose, and his father, Joseph. Forced into the shadow of his older brother, Joe, Jack struggled to find a place for himself until World War II, when he became a national hero and launched his career. Dallek reveals for the first time the full story of Kennedy's wartime actions and the true details of how Joe was killed, opening the door to Jack's ascendancy.
Here is the gripping story of Jack's transformation from an awkward speaker into a brilliant politician with irresistible charm. The audiobook carries us from Jack's work as a senator from Massachusetts, through the fiercely contested 1960 campaign against Nixon, and takes us on to the White House itself.
An Unfinished Life also discloses for the very first time that Kennedy was far sicker than we ever knew. While laboring to present an image of robust good health, Kennedy was secretly in and out of hospitals through-out his life, so ill that he was administered last rites on several different occasions. Here is a vivid portrait of a man who, because he knew how close he was to death, lived as much as he could - sometimes hurting others in the process.
Never shying away from Kennedy's weaknesses, Dallek also brilliantly explores his strengths. The result is a portrait of a bold, brave, human Kennedy, once again a hero.
This newest biography of JFK is indeed a profile in courage. The impression of youthful vigor must have come at great cost because the man was almost always sick and frequently in pain. Richard McGonagle brings the president to life, mimicking the famous accents so well that his renditions of Kennedy speeches compare favorably to Kennedy's own renderings, also available at Audible.com. The biography attempts to hit all the high points, so there are sections where the air is very thin. Yet this listener was grateful just to hear again the voice of an informal, almost self-deprecating leader who, during an earlier time of nuclear instability, was able to say: "Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they can be solved by men."
Robert Dallek is one of the most highly regarded historians in America, and the author of six books, including the acclaimed two-volume of Lyndon Johnson, Lone Star Rising and Flawed Giant. His Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy won the 1980 Bancroft Prize and was nominated for an American Book Award, and American style of Foreign Policy was a 1983 New York Times Notable Book of the Year.