A Hero for Our Times

by Ralph G. Martin

Book Overview

The National Bestseller, the portrait of one of the most best loved and most hated presidents in American history, whose appetites for power and sex were equally consuming, and who is more... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 002580880X
• ISBN13: 9780025808805
• Release Date: September 1983
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 596 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.

Customer Reviews

classic, often touching book on JFK

This 20th anniversary book contains many touching and compelling anecdotes about JFK. There is much (tragic) irony contained herein, as well. Highly recommended. Vince Palamara-JFK/ Secret Service expert (History Channel, author of two books, in over 30 other author's books, etc.) Pittsburgh, PA BEST JFK ASSASSINATION BOOK: ULTIMATE SACRIFICE BEST JFK SECRET SERVICE BOOK: SURVIVOR'S GUILT BY YOURS TRULY :)

hero for our time

"It is engorged with gossip, spiced with sex, and utterly obsessed with personality...fascinating to read...vivid images...leap from every page" says the miami harold.This book i recently read for an english class non-fiction assisgnment. I have read many book's on John F. Kennedys years in office and before his term. this book is fascinating in every way. If you want a book that goes into detail about his life in politics,sex,family,royalty,and friends I reccomend this book to you. From Cape Cod as a child to hyannis port sailing trips. In this book there is some parts that go into details in his relationship with his father and two brothers."theres facts that many people don't even know" for example he was on crutches to the end of his life and jackie stayed at the white house after he died.If You want detail I recommend this book for you.KarlPinconning,MiPinconning High School

A highly entertaining, if superficial, look at JFK's life...

Ralph Martin's "A Hero for our time" is simply one of the best-written and most engrossing accounts of John F. Kennedy that I have read. Despite its' length the book goes remarkably fast, and I finished it in just a few sittings. However, this book is NOT an in-depth, traditional biography of John F. Kennedy's political career, and those who want to read more about the great events of JFK's political career would be well-advised to look elsewhere. Instead, this is an "oral biography" of JFK's life from childhood forward. Martin interviewed dozens of Kennedy's closest friends, relatives, and political aides to present a vivid account of what Kennedy was like as a person - and of what it must have been like to know him personally, or to work for him. The result - as one of the newspaper reviews above accurately states - is like getting the "People" magazine or A & E's "Biography" version of the Kennedy saga. While often factual and well-researched, this book is also filled with gossip - which, while juicy and fascinating - should also be taken with a grain of salt. Martin includes all aspects of Kennedy's personal life - his sickly childhood on Cape Cod, his wild bachelor days, his courtship of the beautiful and aristocratic Jacqueline Bouvier and the Royalty-style wedding, his sometimes-troubled marriage to Jacqueline, his many extramarital affairs, his serious health problems, etc. But Martin does include more weighty material, such as Kennedy's relationships with his father, his brothers Robert and Teddy, and the inner workings of the family's remarkable political machine which in 1960 "beat the odds" to make him our youngest elected President, and the first (and only) Catholic to become President. This book's strengths lie in its' ability to present what JFK the man must really have been like - the eloquence, intelligence, wit, the ability to have fun (and get others to share in it), and the movie-star glamour and charm are all here. The book's weaknesses lie in its' reliance on gossip for some details, and in the way it skims over the details of JFK's political career without ever going in-depth. However, in my opinion this book's strengths far outweigh its' weaknesses, and if (like me) you're too young to have any memory of the Kennedy Presidency and wonder why he was considered to be so exciting, charming, and charismatic, then this book will help you to understand why. Recommended!