Wednesday, July 02, 2008

The Sins of the Father

Over the years, I have read some good biographies about the early twentieth century, including Limbergh, Hearst and more recently Alice Roosevelt Longsworth. There is one person who keeps popping up in these books: Joseph P. Kennedy. I have been looking for a biography of him for some time and finally purchased The Sins of the Father. This was one of the books that I read while we were on vacation in Alaska.

While his sons are icons to my generation, Joseph Kennedy also had a remarkable life; he was the first chairman of the SEC, Ambassador to England at the outbreak of War World II and one of the 20 richest people in America in the 1950's.

It is probably the first biography that I have ever read where when I finished I wondered whether or not it was a hatchet job. The book paints a very unflattering picture of him. There is another book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys that I may read in the future to get another perspective.

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