The First Kennedys

The First Kennedys PDF Author: Neal Thompson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358438721
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
“Here is that rare thing: an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga. . .Compelling and illuminating.”—Jon Meacham Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine; created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics; and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America. Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys’ initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly. Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P.J. to become a successful saloon owner and businessman. P.J. went on to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office—the first of many. Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first-ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers, The First Kennedys is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.

The First Kennedys

The First Kennedys PDF Author: Neal Thompson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358438721
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 411

Get Book

Book Description
“Here is that rare thing: an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga. . .Compelling and illuminating.”—Jon Meacham Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine; created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics; and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America. Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys’ initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly. Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P.J. to become a successful saloon owner and businessman. P.J. went on to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office—the first of many. Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first-ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers, The First Kennedys is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.

The Kennedys

The Kennedys PDF Author: Thomas Maier
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 9780465043170
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 748

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Book Description
A meticulously researched chronicle of five generations of the Kennedy dynasty explains how their Irish-Catholic roots informed their lives and political beliefs and reveals how the immigrant experience shaped both their remarkable success and many tragedies. 100,000 first printing.

Jacqueline Kennedy

Jacqueline Kennedy PDF Author: Barbara A. Perry
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700626506
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In a mere one thousand days, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy created an entrancing public persona that has remained intact for more than a half-century. Even now, long after her death in 1994, she remains a figure of enduring—and endearing—interest. Yet, while innumerable books have focused on the legends and gossip surrounding this charismatic figure, Barbara Perry’s is the first to focus largely on Kennedys’ White House years, portraying a First Lady far more complex and enigmatic than previously perceived. Noting how Jackie’s celebrity and devotion to privacy have for years precluded a more serious treatment, Perry’s engaging and well-crafted story illuminates Kennedy’s immeasurable impact on the institution of the First Lady. Perry vividly illustrates the complexities of Jacqueline Bouvier’s marriage to John F. Kennedy, and shows how she transformed herself from a reluctant political wife to an effective, confident presidential partner. Perry is especially illuminating in tracing the First Lady’s mastery of political symbolism and imagery, along with her use of television and state entertainment to disseminate her work to a global audience. By offering the White House as a stage for the arts, Jackie also bolstered the president’s Cold War efforts to portray the United States as the epitome of a free society. From redecorating the White House, to championing Lafayette Square’s preservation, to lending her name to fund-raising for the National Cultural Center, she had a profound impact on the nation’s psyche and cultural life. Meanwhile, her fashionable clothes and glamorous hairdos stood in stark contrast to the dowdiness of her predecessors and the drab appearances of Communist leaders’ spouses. Never before or since have a First Lady (and her husband) sparkled with so much hope and vigor on the stage of American public life. Perry’s deft narrative captures all of that and more, even as it also insightfully depicts Jackie’s struggles to preserve her own identity amid the pressures of an institution she changed forever. Grounded on the author’s painstaking research into previously overlooked or unavailable archives, at the Kennedy Library and elsewhere, as well as interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy’s close associates, Perry’s work expands and enriches our understanding of a remarkable American woman.

Dead Kennedys

Dead Kennedys PDF Author: Alex Ogg
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 1604869879
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Dead Kennedys routinely top both critic and fan polls as the greatest punk band of their generation. Their debut full-length, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, in particular, is regularly voted among the top albums in the genre. Fresh Fruit offered a perfect hybrid of humor and polemic strapped to a musical chassis that was as tetchy and inventive as Jello Biafra’s withering broadsides. Those lyrics, cruel in their precision, were revelatory. But it wouldn’t have worked if the underlying sonics were not such an uproarious rush, the paraffin to Biafra’s naked flame. Dead Kennedys’ continuing influence is an extraordinary achievement for a band that had practically zero radio play and only released records on independent labels. They not only existed outside of the mainstream but were, as V. Vale of Search and Destroy noted, the first band of their stature to turn on and attack the music industry itself. The DKs set so much in motion. They were integral to the formulation of an alternative network that allowed bands on the first rung of the ladder to tour outside of their own backyard. They were instrumental in supporting the concept of all-ages shows and spurned the advances of corporate rock promoters and industry lapdogs. They legitimized the notion of an American punk band touring internationally while disseminating the true horror of their native country’s foreign policies, effectively serving as anti-ambassadors on their travels. The book uses dozens of first-hand interviews, photos, and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group who would become mired in controversy almost from the get-go. It applauds the band’s key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening—and enormously funny. The author offers context in terms of both the global and local trajectory of punk and, while not flinching from the wildly differing takes individual band members have on the evolution of the band, attempts to be celebratory—if not uncritical.

A Lady, First

A Lady, First PDF Author: Letitia Baldrige
Publisher: Viking Adult
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
These experiences led to the exciting job of working for Clare Boothe Luce at the American Embassy in Rome in the early 1950s.".

The Kennedy Curse

The Kennedy Curse PDF Author: Edward Klein
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466826630
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Death was merciful to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for it spared her a parent's worst nightmare: the loss of a child. But if Jackie had lived to see her son, JFK Jr., perish in a plane crash on his way to his cousin's wedding, she would have been doubly horrified by the familiar pattern in the tragedy. Once again, on a day that should have been full of joy and celebration, America's first family was struck by the Kennedy Curse. In this probing expose, renowned Kennedy biographer Edward Klein--a bestselling author and journalist personally acquainted with many members of the Kennedy family--unravels one of the great mysteries of our time and explains why the Kennedys have been subjected to such a mind-boggling chain of calamities. Drawing upon scores of interviews with people who have never spoken out before, troves of private documents, archives in Ireland and America, and private conversations with Jackie, Klein explores the underlying pattern that governs the Kennedy Curse. The reader is treated to penetrating portraits of the Irish immigrant Patrick Kennedy; Rose Kennedy's father, "Honey Fitz"; the dynasty's founding father Joe Kennedy and his ill-fated daughter Kathleen, President Kennedy, accused rapist William Kennedy Smith, and the star-crossed lovers, JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. Each of the seven profiles demonstrates the basic premise of this book: The Kennedy Curse is the result of the destructive collision between the Kennedy's fantasy of omnipotence-an unremitting desire to get away with things that others cannot-and the cold, hard realities of life.

When We Were the Kennedys

When We Were the Kennedys PDF Author: Monica Wood
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 054763014X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Wood offers a moving memoir of the season in 1963 Mexico, Maine, as she, her mother, and her three sisters healed after the loss of their mill-worker father and then the nation's loss of its handsome young Catholic president.

Rosemary

Rosemary PDF Author: Kate Clifford Larson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 054761795X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The revelatory, poignant story of Rosemary Kennedy, the eldest and eventually secreted-away Kennedy daughter, and how her life transformed her family, its women especially, and an entire nation. "[Larson] succeeds in providing a well-rounded portrait of a woman who, until now, has never been viewed in full."—The Boston Globe “A biography that chronicles her life with fresh details . . . By making Rosemary the central character, [Larson] has produced a valuable account of a mental health tragedy and an influential family’s belated efforts to make amends.”—The New York Times Book Review Joe and Rose Kennedy’s strikingly beautiful daughter Rosemary was intellectually disabled, a secret fiercely guarded by her powerful and glamorous family. In Rosemary, Kate Clifford Larson uses newly uncovered sources to bring Rosemary Kennedy’s story to light. Young Rosemary comes alive as a sweet, lively girl adored by her siblings. But Larson also reveals the often desperate and duplicitous arrangements the Kennedys made to keep her away from home as she became increasingly difficult in her early twenties, culminating in Joe’s decision to have Rosemary lobotomized at age twenty-three and the family’s complicity in keeping the secret. Only years later did the Kennedy siblings begin to understand what had happened to Rosemary, which inspired them to direct government attention and resources to the plight of the developmentally and mentally disabled, transforming the lives of millions. One of People’s Top Ten Books of 2015

Five Days in November

Five Days in November PDF Author: Clint Hill
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476731519
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Secret Service agent Clint Hill reveals the stories behind the iconic images of the five tragic days surrounding President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in this 60th anniversary edition of the New York Times bestseller. On November 22, 1963, three shots were fired in Dallas, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the world stopped for four days. For an entire generation, it was the end of an age of innocence. That evening, a photo ran on the front pages of newspapers across the world, showing a Secret Service agent jumping on the back of the presidential limousine in a desperate attempt to protect the President and Mrs. Kennedy. That agent was Clint Hill. Now Hill commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the tragedy with this stunning book containing more than 150 photos, each accompanied by his incomparable insider account of those terrible days. A story that has taken Hill half a century to tell, this is a “riveting, stunning narrative” (Herald & Review, Illinois) of personal and historical scope. Besides the unbearable grief of a nation and the monumental consequences of the event, the death of JFK was a personal blow to a man sworn to protect the first family, and who knew, from the moment the shots rang out in Dallas, that nothing would ever be the same.

The House of Kennedy

The House of Kennedy PDF Author: James Patterson
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316494887
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Now with an all-new bonus chapter—in the bestselling The House of Kennedy, “James Patterson applies his writerly skills to real-life history . . . re-telling the political clan’s rise and fall and rise again (and fall again) with novelistic style” (People). The Kennedys have always been a family of charismatic adventurers, raised to take risks and excel, living by the dual family mottos: "To whom much is given, much is expected" and "Win at all costs." And they do—but at a price. Across decades and generations, the Kennedys have occupied a unique place in the American imagination: charmed, cursed, at once familiar and unknowable. The House of Kennedy is a revealing, fascinating account of America's most storied family, as told by America's most trusted storyteller.