[OOG]∎ PDF The Last Campaign Robert F Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Thurston Clarke 9780805077926 Books

The Last Campaign Robert F Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Thurston Clarke 9780805077926 Books

Download As PDF : The Last Campaign Robert F Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Thurston Clarke 9780805077926 Books

The Last Campaign Robert F Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Thurston Clarke 9780805077926 Books

As much as I respect Robert Kennedy I find it difficult to read any book about him because I know how his life story will end. While he could have spent a life of ease with his family and money, instead he chose to help those, such as the African Americans and Native Americans, who were often neglected by our affluent society. He found it abhorrent that citizens in Mississippi or on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota were often without enough food to live on. He chose to spend time with people in such dire straits even though he knew many of them didn't vote. I got the feeling that Robert Kennedy campaigned recklessly almost defying an assassin to strike him down as he rode standing up in a convertible and mingling with the people. If this was the price he had to pay to serve America then so be it. In the end he chose to exit the Ambassador Hotel ballroom in Los Angeles in a manner his handlers didn't approve of. Of such seemingly trivial choices is history changed. We are left to wonder if Robert Kennedy would have received the Democratic nomination for president in 1968, and more importantly, how the Vietnam War and American history would have been different. America was robbed of a truly caring individual in a senseless tragedy. The 1960s was a time of an unpopular war, riots, and assassinations for America as anyone who lived through it knows very well. Author Thurston Clarke has provided us with an outstanding offering in The Last Campaign which reviews a time of cautious hope that ended in unfortunate tragedy. Whether you lived through this time period or not, this is the story about a man who did his absolute best to be of service to others.


Tags : The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America [Thurston Clarke] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><DIV><P><B>The definitive account of Robert Kennedy’s exhilarating and tragic 1968 campaign for president—a revelatory history that is especially resonant now</B></P><DIV><P>After John F. Kennedy’s assassination,Thurston Clarke,The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America,Henry Holt and Co.,0805077928,United States - 20th Century,Presidents;United States;Election;1968.,United States;Politics and government;1963-1969.,1925-1968,1963-1969,1968,Biography & Autobiography Political,Biography Autobiography,Election,History,History United States 20th Century,History: American,Kennedy, Robert F.,,Political,Political Process - Elections,Politics and government,Presidents,U.S. History - 1960s,United States,United States - 20th Century60s,United States20th Century

The Last Campaign Robert F Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Thurston Clarke 9780805077926 Books Reviews

Fasten your seatbelt, this is a huge read - gut wrenching, inspiring and fast paced. "The Last Campaign" is a rollercoaster of book that perfectly matches Bobby Kennedy's short lived, barnstorming, rocket propelled campaign in the 1968 Presidential Election. From the prologue where Thurston Clarke captures so powerfully the shocked citizens who stood to honour RFK as his funeral train pulled through their communities, this book grabs you and won't let you go. This was a run for US President like no other seemingly without playbook, script or strategy, just a candidate who ran as his heart directed, emotional, raw, driven. RFK never tempered his words to his audience, he delivered no polished rhetoric or memorable soundbites. In fact he was often almost incoherent on the stump, but his determination, his courage and his honesty carried his message the more effectively.

He stepped up out of duty and love to pick up JFK's mantle and in a few short weeks, surpassed in many ways what his brother had achieved eight years earlier on the campaign trail, drawing huge crowds, mobbed wherever he went. In a country torn apart, he represented something, he was a symbol of hope or lost innocence perhaps, a promise never fulfilled but a memory and a marker in the big book of human history forever.
I have never read a more poignant or moving account of an American political movement or personality than The Last Campaign. Robert Kennedy's life and 1968 campaign inspired me even as a boy in the late Sixties, and he continues to be a guiding light for me today. I've read and reread this book a number of times and it never fails to make me cry. What we lost then can never be regained in our lifetimes, perhaps, but we should never forget or stop striving to make the better world RFK imagined for us all.

I also recommend the riveting and disquieting "Brothers The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years"
by David Talbot. a tremendous investigative narrative which details not only how JFK and RFK faced down the secret "black" government in Washington but how these powerful and self-interested individuals and organizations intrigued against the Kennedys and sought their destruction. Talbot's book answers the question, "Why didn't RFK try to solve his brother's murder?" Well, he did, sometimes clandestinely, and he had plans to do more once he was in the White House; and you'll learn the truth about this here.
As much as I respect Robert Kennedy I find it difficult to read any book about him because I know how his life story will end. While he could have spent a life of ease with his family and money, instead he chose to help those, such as the African Americans and Native Americans, who were often neglected by our affluent society. He found it abhorrent that citizens in Mississippi or on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota were often without enough food to live on. He chose to spend time with people in such dire straits even though he knew many of them didn't vote. I got the feeling that Robert Kennedy campaigned recklessly almost defying an assassin to strike him down as he rode standing up in a convertible and mingling with the people. If this was the price he had to pay to serve America then so be it. In the end he chose to exit the Ambassador Hotel ballroom in Los Angeles in a manner his handlers didn't approve of. Of such seemingly trivial choices is history changed. We are left to wonder if Robert Kennedy would have received the Democratic nomination for president in 1968, and more importantly, how the Vietnam War and American history would have been different. America was robbed of a truly caring individual in a senseless tragedy. The 1960s was a time of an unpopular war, riots, and assassinations for America as anyone who lived through it knows very well. Author Thurston Clarke has provided us with an outstanding offering in The Last Campaign which reviews a time of cautious hope that ended in unfortunate tragedy. Whether you lived through this time period or not, this is the story about a man who did his absolute best to be of service to others.