Kennedy, Robert Books - Page 4

Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years

Robert F. Kennedy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

For young, restless people seeking to find a way.... 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I first read this book about 20-25 years ago. It was a watershed moment for me to read how Robert Kennedy sought consensus for his views, and how he ran up against those who didn't care to be a force for change. One can feel through the pages (as I did) how RFK was continuously haunted by the death of his brother only one year prior to these interviews. This was the text that prompted me to participate in our democracy. As a young man, it also showed me how I could get more of what I wanted by seeking support for my own vision.

Robert Kennedy: In His Own Words

Robert F. Kennedy

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Perfect Villains, Imperfect Heroes: Robert F. Kennedy's War Against Organized Crime (Capital Classics)

Ronald Goldfarb

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

When the newly elected president John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother attorney general, there was a firestorm of criticism. Not only was the nepotism blatant, but Robert Kennedy had never tried a case in court and was considered ruthless, highly politicized and intemperate. Nevertheless, he went on to become one of the most active and effective attorneys general in American history. This book examines his four-year tenure and the concerted war on crime he launched during that time. Written by one of the bright young lawyers he recruited to work as part of the special rackets prosecution team, Perfect Villains, Imperfect Heroes is an insider’s view of one of the Kennedy administration’s most exciting and largely untold stories. In this account of the historic battle between law breakers and law enforcers, Goldfarb shows that these cases had a profound impact on public consciousness that the mob’s leaders, even if they did not directly cause the murder of John F. Kennedy, might well have been tried and convicted of conspiring to do so, since they had both the means and motive, took steps toward that end, and left an abundance of incriminating evidence.

The Other Mrs. Kennedy: Ethel Skakel Kennedy : An American Drama of Power, Privilege, and Politics

Jerry Oppenheimer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Eye opener!!!!!! 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Slapping maids? Calling them niggers? Spending thousands on the same belt in different colors? Driving cars into pools? I've always wondered about Ethel Kennedy and now I think I know all there is to know. Including the fact that she was a spoiled, uninterested, racist who was obsessed with her husband, and turned a blind eye towards his affairs. Any glamour I had attached to her is now gone and I'm utterly disappointed. Of all the Kennedy brothers I held Bobby in highest esteem because he was a tenacious man who fought hard to rid this country of many injustices. Now in light of his having married Ethel I question that. How could he love and marry a woman like that? She was reckless and had no respect for personal boundaries erected by others. She was a poor mother and left the day-to-day raising of her children to nannies, dogs, horses, friends, and whoever else happened to be hanging around Hickory Hill on a given day. I could appreciate to a certain extent, her love and devotion to Bobby. However, she was on the brink of being obsessed. She was horribly jealous of both Jackie and Joan and would make rude comments at their expense. In short she could dish it out, but was hard pressed to take it. It seemed as though she believed everyone was put here on earth to serve her. In light of her "I'm a princess" attitude and her strong religious beliefs, I cannot fully understand WHY she tolerated Bobby's infidelities. All in all, this book was disappointing as it revealed a side of Ethel I would have preferred not to see.

Editorial Review:

Based on hundreds of interviews and years of research, an intimate and revealing portrait of the Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, reveals a driven woman with a tragic family history and with great political influence. 100,000 first printing. $150,000 ad/promo.

Profiles in Courage

John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Follow your Compass! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I read this book quite a while back and found some great food for thought. One of my primary takeaways was that be careful when judging others motives.

Kennedy (or whoever wrote the book) poses a primary question: Which is better...the man who will not compromise at all, or the man who bends but does not break?

The argument is that the man who does not compromise may be considered true to his cause, but may get little done. The man who compromises to get things done may not be 100% true to his cause but is able to forward some of his ideas.

The author(s) leave it up to the reader to decide (judge) if the path is right. Or, are both paths right? This is good food for thought for a critical thinker!

What the author(s) is pointing at is that each man and woman must choose their own path in a situation according to their beliefs, values and morals, even if it may cause political and/or other ruin.

The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking

Editorial Review:

John F. Kennedy's spirited words and devotion to courage live on in this edition of his Pulitzer Prize-winning portraits of Americans. "Thoughtful and persuasive."--New York Times

RFK: Selected Speeches: Original Live Recordings of RFK's Finest Speeches

Robert F. Kennedy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

If Words Could Move Mountains ... 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

You can hear the compassion and conviction in Bobby's voices. I have listened to these two tapes many times over... I've read the speeches in text ... but nothing is like listening to Bobby's voice, slightly shaken, slightly rushed, but always genuine and sincere. Bobby Kennedy is an American leader. Though his short life span did not allow him to accomplish enough, his vision and integrity examplified what spiritual growth could be. Even with all the mistakes he might have made, you could never doubt his conviction and his good will towards all mankind. Listen to his voice, not just his words ... and let his voice give you a desire to give more than what you are required ... to live for something greater than ourselves. Even in death, Bobby left the youths of every generation the challenge, a torch to carry on.

Editorial Review:

A collection of speeches by Robert F. Kennedy, arranged chronologically, are woven together with a narrative that places them in global and national context.

Up Close: Robert F. Kennedy (Up Close)

Marc Aronson

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Richie's Picks: ROBERT F. KENNEDY 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

"Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John."
--Dion DiMucci

"Bobby Kennedy's short, eventful, and ultimately tragic life, you might say, was the transition from a time of secrets to one of exposure. We now know as much about his crippling flaws as his lofty aspirations. If he no longer looms as a pure Kennedy prince, that is all the better. For instead of an idol, he comes across as a dark, complex -- and deeply human --human being."

It is rare for me to share a book's ending but, in this instance, it is difficult to improve upon Marc Aronson's own conclusion of what he has so successfully accomplished in crafting this exceptional biography for middle school and high school students about Robert F. Kennedy, a larger than life figure from my childhood. I'd previously thought I knew a lot about Bobby Kennedy. Boy, was I wrong!

Actually, this is not a biography exclusively for adolescents, for the impeccable research that is at the foundation of this work will easily hold up when some college student decides to use it for a class, and the drama of Aronson's tale will quite handily engage adult readers as well. Marc Aronson is well known for doing informational adolescent literature the right way; in fact, he was awarded the very first Sibert Informational Book Award, an American Library Association award which honors an author "whose work of nonfiction has made a significant contribution to the field of children's literature."

What Marc Aronson was required to do, in writing his first book for Penguin's brand new CLOSEUP biography series for adolescents, debuting this spring, was to distill all of his extensive research down to 200 pages of adolescent reading. (This will be one of the trademarks of this series.) And while this has got to be a significant challenge for someone like Marc who is known for thoroughly exploring both their subject and the world in which that subject lives, what the reader ends up with here is a 200-page biography that is quite a manageable read for most teens and is an utterly engaging and often horrifying story containing not a single clunker or superfluous sentence.

In revealing the person that was Bobby Kennedy, the author lays out how Bobby's disposition, his position in the birth order of the famous Kennedy clan, and his father's disdain for him in contrast to the paternal nurturing of Joe Jr. and Jack, all had an immense -- some would say, fatal -- influence upon the man that Robert Kennedy grew up to be:

"Reckless courage was a characteristic Robert Francis Kennedy showed throughout his life. The bigger the challenge, the more eager he was to throw himself at it. As a child, Bobby flung himself into cold waters. As a lawyer in Washington, and later as Attorney General, he took on the nation's most dangerous mobsters. He went up, one-on-one, against Jimmy Hoffa, a corrupt union official who was as ruthless as he was powerful. At the height of white racial violence, Kennedy made himself the number-one target of armed and hate-crazed segregationists. Then at the worst moment of African-American fury and dispair he chose to speak in an all-black neighborhood. In a time when assassinations of outspoken leaders were all too common, he plunged into endless crowds."

An interesting strategy that Aronson employs in his writing here is his allusion to pieces of well known children's literature in explaining Bobby Kennedy's story, such as when he refers to Portsmouth Priory "as a kind of Hogwarts-under-construction," or when he compares the severing of Bobby from his brother through Jack's 1963 assassination to the agony suffered in THE GOLDEN COMPASS when people are severed from their daemons.

Looking like it will be the antithesis and an antidote to the vapid and/or exceedingly dense institutional biography series that you so often find on school library shelves, UPCLOSE: ROBERT KENNEDY is a superb piece of writing that transforms an icon into a real human being.

Editorial Review:

Before his short life was ended by assassination, Robert Kennedy was Attorney General of the United States, Senator from New York, and a charismatic Presidential candidate. But even more astonishing was Kennedy’s personal odyssey. Born into immense wealth and privilege, Kennedy came to embrace the cause of the poor and the disenfranchised, and to be seen by them as their champion.

Robert F. Kennedy: Promise for the Future (Makers of America)

Arlene Schulman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

NICE INTRO 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Robert Kennedy was my very first hero as a child. This book for young readers will, I hope, introduce the succeeding generations to the man who would be president in 1968.

I like the way the author highlights the salient points of the late Senator's life. Although this is not a comprehensive biography even for young standards, the author does a credible job of presenting the Senator in a favorable light. I was especially pleased that the Senator's focus on civil rights issues was emphasized.

As with any work on Robert Kennedy, the reader is left with the aching, gaping question of what would have transpired in the intervening years had this good man been elected president in 1968.

PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II

Robert J. Donovan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the early morning darkness of August 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer sliced an American PT boat in two, leaving its crew for dead in a flaming sea. The boat's skipper was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Swimming into darkness and seriously injured, Kennedy led his men through a grueling three miles to the safety of a small island, towing one badly burned crewman the whole way. Over the next three days, he repeatedly risked his life to summon help until he finally secured his crew's rescue. He lost only two men.

In PT 109, journalist Robert Donovan vividly re-creates these events, as well as a later daring night operation in which Kennedy, skippering another boat, braved heavy enemy gunfire to pluck fifty men from the water and carry them to safety.

This audio of Donovan's classic includes a new foreword from Daniel Schorr, a new preface by the author, and a new afterword by World War II naval historian Duane Hove. Here for a new generation is a compelling glimpse of the values of service and duty that characterized America during the war years, as fresh and timely now as when it was published forty years ago.

RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy

C. David Heymann

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Orgies in the White House pool, sadomasochistic sex with prostitutes, abuse of prescription drugs--if the Kennedy brothers had been forced to deal with an independent counsel investigation, the American people would likely still be plowing through their videotaped testimony. But in their heyday, even a political enemy like Jimmy Hoffa considered their personal lives off-limits, so gossip lovers have had to wait a few decades for the lurid details. Aptly subtitled A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy, this lengthy tome actually includes fairly substantive coverage of RFK's political activities as well as plenty of dish. Although the author notes that he worked on RFK's 1968 presidential campaign, the book is not notable for his empathy with his subject (unless you count comments like "Bobby wasn't so much into bimbos as his two brothers were"). However, Heymann's heavy reliance on quotes from interviews--many with individuals whose motives and veracity he never analyzes--does give an intimate sense of the younger Kennedy brother's personality: competitive, aggressive, not nearly as charming as Jack, but arguably a lot more thoughtful. The portrait of Bobby that emerges here is not pretty, but it's certainly vivid. --Wendy Smith