Jack Kennedy: The Education of a Statesman

by Barbara Leaming

Book Overview

The enthralling, previously untold story of the friendships and forces that shaped the Kennedy presidency. In the summer of 1938 a tall, raw-boned Harvard student arrived in London, where his father was the American ambassador and his favorite sister, Kick, had gained entr?e to a closed group of young aristocrats. In the run-up to World War II, as Winston Churchill called on a reluctant Britain to resist Adolf Hitler before it was too late, Jack Kennedy...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393051617
• ISBN13: 9780393051612
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 509 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Great Summer Read

You'll find Barbara Leaming's marvelous book very difficult to put down. Somehow she has uncovered entirely new source material which sheds light on Kennedy's early years in Great Britain when his father Joe was Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Introduced by his sister Kick to a circle of bright young aristocrats, the connections made in these early years would last a lifetime and shape his world view in a dangerous time for the US and for the world. What struck me particularly in the book was how much of what Kennedy learns is still enormously relevant in today's world. This book should be required reading for our leaders in Washington and especially our Presidential candidates for 2008! I cannot wait to see what subject Ms. Leaming takes on next.

jack kennedy: the education of a statesman

everything about this transaction was first class.

Great History Lesson

The is a marvelous blow by blow description of how WWII statred Also a wondreful blow by blow of the Cuban Missle crisis The research was fantastic

A New Look At Jack Kennedy

A child when Kennedy was assassinated, I grew up with a mix of fact and mystique in what I knew of President Kennedy. Barbara Leaming's book introduces me to a Kennedy not unrecognizable from the Kennedy I was aware of growing up, without whitewashing his actions. I really enjoy the way she brings across Jack Kennedy in the various points of his life. It does seem to dwell a little overlong on his sister Kick's story, but it's a really satisfying read and she really brings historical moments of the time to life and shows them in relation to Kennedy's life.

Pilgrim's Progress

What a clever idea Barbara Leaming has for a re-examination of John F. Kennedy's life. She explores the impact of his relationship with movers-and-shakers in England, concentrating on David Ormsby-Gore, one of Kennedy's sister Kathleen's Smart Set in pre-World War II London. As a long-term Kennedy biography reader, it's fascinating to revisit experiences in his life from a new richly-textured perspective. The meatiest part of the book is easily Kennedy's introduction to Ormsby-Gore and friends, when Kennedy's father is appointed Ambassador to Great Britain. Reporting becomes thin in the last year of Kennedy's presidency. Chapters dealing on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would have been greatly improved by stitching in some primary sourcework on Nikita Kruschev, perhaps from his son's biographies of him. Another help might have been incorporating Schlesinger's or Bundy's perspectives on the British influence on Kennedy on these issues. More voices, more analysis might have mitigated the ping-pong like effect in these chapters --- Kennedy said, Ormsby-Gore said, Macmillan said. Also, perhaps because Leaming's indebtedness to British peerage for valuable first-person accounts of what JFK was like at the time, reader is shorted in several respects. Scant mention or analysis of Kathleen Kennedy's infatuation with another British peer, married with a child, after her first husband dies. There's some insinuation that Fitzwilliam, the second peer, was randy, representing another type of British upperclassman. But, there's nothing to indicate why the sister would embrace the darker side of British Aristocracy nor what impact this had on Kennedy himself. Ditto scant info at the end about Ormsby-Gore and wife, post Kennedy, other than mention that they're killed in separate auto accidents. That said, an engrossing read. A must for Kennedy biography fans.