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Title: The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings by Thomas Maier ISBN: 0-465-04317-8 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 03 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings
Comment: Just when you thought there was no way to write about theennedys from a new angle, Maier comes up with one. His take is to view the family through the green prism of Ireland and, by extension, to examine their relationship to the Roman Catholic Church. This makes for surprisingly fresh reading. Although many of the stories related here are familiar--Joeennedy's attempts to break into Brahmin society, the impact on the family of daughterathleen's penchant for Protestant men--Maier deepens the account by also bringing up less discussed incidents, such as Congressmanohnennedy's trip to Ireland (andackie's, four years after the assassination) and how both the Catholic faith andFK's Irish heritage played integral parts at the president's funeral. Nor does the story end with the Camelot days.eanennedy Smith, the eighth child in the family, served as ambassador to Ireland, and Bobbyennedy's daughter, Courtney, married Paul Hill, wrongly imprisoned by the police for terrorism. This extremely readable biography not only examines one particular immigrant family but also sheds light on the larger story of Irish Americans from the early twentieth century onward.
Rating: 5
Summary: Another Side of This Family
Comment: Professor Maier has documented a side of the Kennedys that many readers are quite unfamiliar with: their ongoing commitment to their religious heritage. As Maier writes, Americans are more comfortable with Kennedy's as power operators and libertines. The essential Catholic nature of these men and women, however, either bores us or makes us uncomfortable. Some liberals don't appreciate the Kennedys as Catholics because they dislike Catholicism itself. Many conservatives deny that the Kennedy's are Catholic because, for such critics, morality means sexual prudery. Maier is able to strike the proper balance in portraying Joseph, Sr., John F. Kennedy and Edward as committed, believing albeit flawed Catholics. Robert is correctly drawn as the most conventionally devout of the Kennedy males. This should not be a revelation to readers, but in a sense, it is. And the author makes one more very important and routinely ignored point: It is very significant that Americans have been unwilling to nominate (let alone elect) a Roman Catholic to the Presidency since John F. Kennedy, over 40 years ago. This work ranks as one of the best, most carefully-documented and readable of the hundreds of books published about this family.
Rating: 5
Summary: Entertaining, Informative and Not a Rehash
Comment: While this is an excellent history of the Kennedy family, tracing its roots like few histories have done, this book is far more. The author neither shows a bias to adore this large, well-known clan nor does he show a disdain for them. He simply tells the story as it is and leaves the reader to his own conclusions.
The main thrust of the book is the family's dealings with the Catholic church. We learn what many have suspected, that the Kennedy family paid off the churches leaders, providing them with much personal and institutional wealth, for the benefit of various Kennedy family members --- for special treatment and services.
The book covers just about all family members who were helped by the Catholic hierarchy but, of course, it spends more time on JFK who benefited from payments made by his father on his behalf. But it goes on to the more recent affairs including marriage annulments of lesser family members.
While this clan is of much less importance than it once was --- indeed it is of little importance --- this history and the new revelations add a good deal of knowledge for the student of politics and religion and leaves us with a distaste and distrust of both.
Susanna K. Hutcheson
Owner & Executive Copy Director
Powerwriting.com LLC
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Title: Sweet Caroline : Last Child of Camelot by Christopher Andersen ISBN: 006621369X Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Sons of Camelot : The Fate of an American Dynasty by Laurence Leamer ISBN: 006620965X Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 16 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Remembering Jack: Intimate and Unseen Photographs of the Kennedys by Lowe ISBN: 0821228498 Publisher: Bulfinch Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Grace and Power : The Private World of the Kennedy White House by SALLY BEDELL SMITH ISBN: 0375504494 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 04 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Farewell, Jackie: A Portrait of Her Final Days by Edward Klein ISBN: 0670033316 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 12 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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