More than a million others fled across the Atlantic, through what poet John Boyle O’Reilly would call “the bowl of tears.” Over a period of years beginning in 1845, owing to a spreading blight, a million tenant farmers and their families, making up much of the country’s rural population, died of both hunger and disease. If a new crop failed, as it did in what’s known as the Great Famine, the people starved.
A family had to survive an entire year on those pulled up the previous fall. For those who lived, worked, and died on the subsistence farms of mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, life itself hung on the annual harvest of a single crop-the potato, which was the basic food for much of the country. The immense wealth and security of the Kennedy family in twentieth-century America must be measured against the horrid poverty of their immediate ancestors. This definitive book brings Bobby Kennedy to life like never before. Matthew illuminates the important moments of his life: from his early years and his start in politics, to his crucial role as attorney general in his brother’s administration and, finally, his tragic run for president.
RFK would prove himself to be the rarest of politicians-both a pragmatist who knew how to get the job done and an unwavering idealist who could inspire millions.ĭrawing on extensive research and interviews, Matthews pulls back the curtain on the private world of Robert Francis Kennedy. They were the people who turned out for him in his 1968 campaign. It was a life-changing experience that led him to connect with voters from all walks of life: young and old, black and white, rich and poor. When he had the chance to become a naval officer like his older brother, Bobby turned it down, choosing instead to join the Navy as a common sailor. Overlooked by his father, and overshadowed by his war-hero brother, Bobby Kennedy was a perpetual underdog. Now, with Bobby Kennedy, Matthews provides “insight into spirit and what drove him to greatness” ( New York Journal of Books) in his gripping, in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at one of the great figures of the American twentieth century. With his bestselling biography Jack Kennedy, Chris Matthews profiled of one of America’s most beloved Presidents and the patriotic spirit that defined him. Through tragedy after tragedy we find the man humanized” (Associated Press). Kennedy, “Readers witness the evolution of Kennedy’s soul. In Chris Matthews’s New York Times bestselling portrait of Robert F.
0 kommentar(er)
