A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy - Softcover

Reeves, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 076151287X ISBN 13: 9780761512875

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 1997

Synopsis

No issue is more hotly debated than how, or even if, a politician's private life affects his public competence. In A Question of Character John F. Kennedy's two lives—public and private—are examined to answer this timely question. Respected historian and biographer Thomas C. Reeves reveals discrepancies between JFK's public persona, which has reached mythic proportions, and his scandalous private behavior. Most illuminating is the constant theme or Joe Kennedy's almost total control of JFK's behavior and politics throughout most of his son's career.

"The John Kennedy who emerges from these pages was not a man of good moral character. He was reared not to be good but to win." — Los Angeles Times

Reeves has provided the most truthful and balanced assessment of John F. Kennedy to date. Written more in sorrow than in anger, A Question of Character explores the sensitive and difficult question of how people, and history itself, ought to judge the relationship between personal character and national leadership.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Readers interested in a serious revisionist examination of Kennedy's life and record should look at A Question of Character, . . . a book that, judging by Hersh's 'Chapter Notes,' seems not to have come to his attention. If it had, perhaps we would have been spared The Dark Side of Camelot."— Jonathan Yardley, in his Washington Post review of Seymour Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot.
"The John Kennedy who emerges from these pages was not a man of good moral character. He was reared not to be good but to win."— Los Angeles Times
"It is the Marilyn Monroe chapter that speaks the loudest in this book of the incredible hubris of Jack and Bobby Kennedy. You have to read it to believe it."— Liz Smith

About the Author:

Thomas C. Reeves is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin. He is also the author of The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy and The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity. He lives in Franksville, Wisconsin.

About this edition

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 076151287X
• ISBN 13: 9780761512875
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544