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  • The Kennedy Brothers

  • The Rise and Fall of Jack and Bobby
  • By: Richard D. Mahoney
  • Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
  • Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (13 ratings)

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The Kennedy Brothers cover art

The Kennedy Brothers

By: Richard D. Mahoney
Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
Free with 30-day trial

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Editorial reviews

With family connections as his starting point, former Arizona Secretary of State and scholar at the Kennedy Library Mahoney probes the intriguing relationship between Kennedy brothers "cool" Jack and "hot tempered" Bobb to provide a new perspective to a well-studied slice of American history. Their mutual devotion, as well as their loyalty to family patriarch Joseph, is explored with a serious, somber yet vibrant reading by Peter Altschuler and offers an engaging look at an iconic family as well as a persuasive take on the tumultuous 1960s: what led up to the era and how it continues to influence events of today.

Publisher's Summary

Books about the Kennedys are legion. Yet missing until now has been the exploration of the bond between Jack and Bobby, and the part that it played in their rise and fall. Eight years apart in age, they were wildly different in temperament and sensibility. Jack was the born leader—charismatic, ironic, capable of extraordinary growth and reach, yet also pathologically reckless. Bobby was the fearless, hardworking Boy Scout—unafraid of dirty work and ruthless about protecting his brother and destroying their enemies. Jack, it was said, was the first Irish Brahman, Bobby the last Irish Puritan.

As Mahoney demonstrates with brilliant clarity in this impeccably documented, magisterial book, the Kennedys lived their days of power in dangerous, trackless territory. The revolution in Cuba had created a poisonous cauldron of pro- and anti-Castro forces, the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, and the Mafia. Mahoney gives us Jack and Bobby in all their hubris and humanity, youthfulness and fatalism. Here is American history as it unfolds. The Kennedy Brothers is a fresh and masterful account of the men whose legacy continues to hold the American imagination. (Originally published under the title Sons and Brothers.)

Richard D. Mahoney is Kennedy Scholar Emeritus of the University of Massachusetts. He is an expert on international economics and foreign policy. He is the author of two histories of the Kennedy administration, and was the Democratic secretary of state and acting governor of Arizona. He lives in Phoenix.

©1999, 2011 Richard D. Mahoney (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

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Important book

Learned political tensions part of American history. As a young woman at the time some aspects were known, now good to know the detail.

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Engaging sympathetic and poignant

The writer has a bias towards the Kennedy family but this does not impede the story nor it’s telling. The details are wide and “ behind the scenes “ and the language creates the sense of watching the events unfold.
Excellent

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A different perspective.

Well read. I feel I've heard the real inside personal history of both Kennedy brothers.

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