Journals 1952 - 2000

Description

Frank, revelatory, suffused with wit and humanity, Arthur Schlesinger Jr's journals offer an intimate history of post-war America, from his days on Adlai Stevenson's campaign team to his years in JFK and RFK's inner circle, through to the election of George W. Bush. They contain candid reminiscences of the defining events of our time - including the Bay of Pigs, the devastating assassinations of the 1960s, Vietnam, Watergate, the fall of the Soviet Union, and Bush vs Gore. They also offer an extraordinary window into the lives of the remarkable range of politicians, intellectuals, writers, and actors who were his friends - from the Kennedys to Kissinger and the Clintons, from Norman Mailer to Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe. Together Schlesinger's journals form an astonishingly vivid portrait of American politics and culture in the second half of the twentieth century - one that only a man who knew everyone, and missed nothing, could provide.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. was a renowned American historian, social critic, and political figure. He twice won both the Pulitzer Prize, for The Age of Jackson and A Thousand Days, and the National Book Award, also for A Thousand Days and for Robert Kennedy and His Times. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. died in 2007.

"'Completely compelling... A mesmerizing read.' Antonia Fraser 'Quite disconcertingly good' Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Monthly 'Hard to put down...barely a page passes without some encounter with the great and good... The writing has all the clarity, and the argument all the precision, of a foremost practitioner of the historical art. It is the production of a man at the top of his game.' Dominic Sandbrook, Literary Review 'Today, Schlesinger has never seemed more relevant... The elegance, wit and learning of these journals make them worth reading for sheer pleasure alone. But for the light they throw on the liberal experience, they have become required reading.' Richard Aldous, Irish Times 'This arch, irresistibly revealing book manages to be both showstopping and doorstopping, what with its vast range of subject matter and unfettered private sniping.' Janet Maslin, New York Times"