Rating: 
Summary: Worth the 70 bucks (though I bought it for 36 bucks)
Review: I liked this book very much. It's not like a biography of RFK, but it is a biography of RFK's career in politics. This book is very detailed, so grab a pen and paper because its so indepth.
Rating: 
Summary: Very poor biography of Robert Kennedy
Review: In a market stuffed with tell-all biographies that feature nothing more than rumor, inneundo, and heresay, it is refreshing that Dr. Hilty took up the cause to set the record straight. If there was one person to write a trenchant, accurate account of the RFK legacy, Dr. Hilty would be the No. 1 draft-choice. Not only does Dr. Hilty set the record straight, he destroys the myths, legends and lies with something that is missing from most mass-produced biographies: historical fact. Dr. Hilty is a historian beyond reproach and he shows that with his latest work. He takes no shortcuts and it shows in his work.
Rating: 
Summary: A sage on a sage
Review: In a market stuffed with tell-all biographies that feature nothing more than rumor, inneundo, and heresay, it is refreshing that Dr. Hilty took up the cause to set the record straight. If there was one person to write a trenchant, accurate account of the RFK legacy, Dr. Hilty would be the No. 1 draft-choice. Not only does Dr. Hilty set the record straight, he destroys the myths, legends and lies with something that is missing from most mass-produced biographies: historical fact. Dr. Hilty is a historian beyond reproach and he shows that with his latest work. He takes no shortcuts and it shows in his work.
Rating:
Summary: Hilty brings to life force behind Kennedy legacy
Review: It is impossible to write about Robert Kennedy in adult life without writing about his brother, John Kennedy. Hilty does a very thorough job of portraying Robert Kennedy, the dedicated, hard working, determined brother, warts in all in a fair and impartial way. Throughout this book, one sees the "metamorphosis" of Robert Kennedy. He is the man who works behind the scenes, protecting his brother's interests to his maximum extent. He is the man who pushes his brother forward while sublimating his own interests, needs and identity. It is only in the tragic aftermath of the President's death does Robert Kennedy, in full adult form emerge -- the man who immersed himself in classical literature, the man who became a personal crusader for civil rights related issues, the man who made it his business to know minorities and persons living in poverty. It is during the last nearly half-decade of his life that the full face of Robert Kennedy is shown to his constituents -- the man who doggedly pursued Teamsters and Mafiosi in the 1950s takes that same dogged persistence to the political arena where he runs on his own right. He is a voice for the disenfranchised, a voice for those who share his vision. He was a man who provided hope during a very turbulent period in history marked by war and national violence. It is the opinion of this reviewer that Robert Kennedy is certainly the more interesting of the brothers. His personal, political and personality development is very interesting to watch and track. He was certainly a man who came across as very sincere in his efforts and one cannot help wondering what the outcome today would be had this man lived. This is a book well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A GOOD, OBJECTIVE OVERVIEW
Review: It is impossible to write about Robert Kennedy in adult life without writing about his brother, John Kennedy. Hilty does a very thorough job of portraying Robert Kennedy, the dedicated, hard working, determined brother, warts in all in a fair and impartial way. Throughout this book, one sees the "metamorphosis" of Robert Kennedy. He is the man who works behind the scenes, protecting his brother's interests to his maximum extent. He is the man who pushes his brother forward while sublimating his own interests, needs and identity. It is only in the tragic aftermath of the President's death does Robert Kennedy, in full adult form emerge -- the man who immersed himself in classical literature, the man who became a personal crusader for civil rights related issues, the man who made it his business to know minorities and persons living in poverty. It is during the last nearly half-decade of his life that the full face of Robert Kennedy is shown to his constituents -- the man who doggedly pursued Teamsters and Mafiosi in the 1950s takes that same dogged persistence to the political arena where he runs on his own right. He is a voice for the disenfranchised, a voice for those who share his vision. He was a man who provided hope during a very turbulent period in history marked by war and national violence. It is the opinion of this reviewer that Robert Kennedy is certainly the more interesting of the brothers. His personal, political and personality development is very interesting to watch and track. He was certainly a man who came across as very sincere in his efforts and one cannot help wondering what the outcome today would be had this man lived. This is a book well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A capturing account of one of the most intriguing statesmen.
Review: James Hilty brings to life the force behind the Kennedy Presidency -- Robert Kennedy. Hilty states "That we speak at all of a Kennedy Legacy...is because of Robert Kennedy...That we connect the Kennedy name to issues of social justice and equity is also the result of RFK's work after the death of (JFK)." Dispelling the American Myth of Kennedy "deity," while focusing on the Kennedys as human beings and, above all, politicians, Hilty eloquently takes the reader back into the Kennedy era, conveying the story as it occured...with RFK functioning in many circumstances as a "co-president." RFK served as a "brother protector" to JFK, as the older brother's campaign manager as well as guardian of JFK's presidency. Called "number one and half" by some presidential insiders, Robert Kennedy was consulted by the president on virtually every issue of monumental importance. Access to the president often had to first pass the younger brother. Hilty further portrays RFK as a good person who had become "champion of the outcasts, the Jeremiah of the sixties." It was the younger Kennedy who pushed and advanced civil rights. *Brother Protector* takes the readers to RFK's life just past his brother's assasination, leaving them anxious for the second volume of this innovative, capturing historical account of one of the most intriguing statesmen in US History.
Rating:
Summary: James Hilty Takes Bobby Kennedy's Life To An Exciting Pause
Review: Life's A Stage - In Two Acts Act One: The Seventh Child, Campaign Manger And Attorney General James Hilty has written a fine and thought-provoking study of one of America's most vivid politicians. What surprised me was how much I had remembered since the days when I first read about Bobby Kennedy at University some 14 years or so ago. I thought of him then as someone who might have offered a better hope for American politics than JFK had been able to in his few years in power, and Hilty's study does little to diminish that view. As Hilty says, Brother Protector is essentially the first Part or Act of what will become a two-volume study of Bobby Kennedy and concentrates on the years up to JFK's assassination in 1963. In other words, it focuses primarily on the years in which Robert Kennedy first struggled to find his identity and voice in a large and demanding family. What shines throughout is the intensity with which he developed that identity and the ends to which he pushed it. At times, I felt that Bobby would have liked to have been his elder brother, John, and I lost count of the number of decisions that he made to help further JFK's re-election chances in 1964. In fact, whether intentionally or otherwise, James Hilty emerges as somewhat cynical about this aspect of Bobby's years as first JFK's campaign manager and then as Attorney General. Adherents of the Camelot myth therefore will be readily disappointed by this study. Then again, so to will those who adhere to the flip side of a tawdry administration in which RFK is assumed to have been as much of a 'womanizer' as they believe JFK to have been. Hilty is strongly unconvinced by any RFK/Marilyn Monroe rumors and depicts Bobby instead as intensely loyal and loving to his wife, Ethel and to his many children. At one point he refers to Ethel as Bobby's 'Best Friend' and certainly the surviving family anecdotes and pictures reinforce that. Yet, having said that, the Bobby Kennedy who was both his elder Brother's Protector and the young debutante of Act One of his own life, was clearly no saint and nothing that Hilty reveals of Bobby could have convinced either Hilty or us, the reader, that he was anything but a frequently tough operator awash in a transitional climate of political conservatism versus needed change. In terms of style, I have read few books where what happens in the future becomes such a willing participant in and observer of its own difficult and hard to unravel past. Hilty uses the historian's faculty of omniscient hindsight to full effect - particularly in his fascinating and vivid accounts of the struggle to impress the quest for Civil Rights upon an often reluctant and conservative-minded Kennedy administration, the lunacies of that administration's provocative policies towards Cuba and their responsibility for building up the US presence in Vietnam. Yet, somehow, Bobby Kennedy emerges with credit even if at times, he comes across as too embroiled in keeping one eye on his brother's re-election chances in 1964. This is especially so on Civil Rights however much one might have ached to push him towards a faster and more productive use of his obvious morality, ethical sense and exciting ability to 'see' when he was looking. Bobby even in the 1000 days of JFK's administration still manages to use his deep and aggressive passions to sometimes good effect. It is also hard to escape the conclusion that beyond the 'darkness' that came upon RFK after his brother's assassination, lay the hope of light and if JFK's untimely death switched off one proverbially vital lamp in Bobby's life, the remarkable thing is that he was yet able to find in the years ahead the means to allow his own inner spiritual and ethical lamps to burn more fiercely, openly and productively. The result was for all to see as he stepped forth from the darker and sometimes murky shadows of Act One of his life into a more open realm as a new Brother Unprotected, the Brother Beyond, and, as Hilty says in the last pages of his work, perhaps the most 'vulnerable man in America'. In looking back at those years ahead, I can't wait for Hilty's completion of Act Two of Bobby Kennedy's life. I guess it has to be unusual to read a book that leads the reader to a pause in the life of a Kennedy rather than the violent full stops that most take you to. At least, however, here is one book of Bobby Kennedy in which I can preserve the illusion that he is still alive and on the threshold of the hope he became to millions across America. Maybe then Act Two shouldn't be written, but yet it has to be if this fascinating study is to reach its inevitable and still tragic conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: James Hilty Takes Bobby Kennedy's Life To An Exciting Pause
Review: Life's A Stage - In Two Acts Act One: The Seventh Child, Campaign Manger And Attorney General James Hilty has written a fine and thought-provoking study of one of America's most vivid politicians. What surprised me was how much I had remembered since the days when I first read about Bobby Kennedy at University some 14 years or so ago. I thought of him then as someone who might have offered a better hope for American politics than JFK had been able to in his few years in power, and Hilty's study does little to diminish that view. As Hilty says, Brother Protector is essentially the first Part or Act of what will become a two-volume study of Bobby Kennedy and concentrates on the years up to JFK's assassination in 1963. In other words, it focuses primarily on the years in which Robert Kennedy first struggled to find his identity and voice in a large and demanding family. What shines throughout is the intensity with which he developed that identity and the ends to which he pushed it. At times, I felt that Bobby would have liked to have been his elder brother, John, and I lost count of the number of decisions that he made to help further JFK's re-election chances in 1964. In fact, whether intentionally or otherwise, James Hilty emerges as somewhat cynical about this aspect of Bobby's years as first JFK's campaign manager and then as Attorney General. Adherents of the Camelot myth therefore will be readily disappointed by this study. Then again, so to will those who adhere to the flip side of a tawdry administration in which RFK is assumed to have been as much of a 'womanizer' as they believe JFK to have been. Hilty is strongly unconvinced by any RFK/Marilyn Monroe rumors and depicts Bobby instead as intensely loyal and loving to his wife, Ethel and to his many children. At one point he refers to Ethel as Bobby's 'Best Friend' and certainly the surviving family anecdotes and pictures reinforce that. Yet, having said that, the Bobby Kennedy who was both his elder Brother's Protector and the young debutante of Act One of his own life, was clearly no saint and nothing that Hilty reveals of Bobby could have convinced either Hilty or us, the reader, that he was anything but a frequently tough operator awash in a transitional climate of political conservatism versus needed change. In terms of style, I have read few books where what happens in the future becomes such a willing participant in and observer of its own difficult and hard to unravel past. Hilty uses the historian's faculty of omniscient hindsight to full effect - particularly in his fascinating and vivid accounts of the struggle to impress the quest for Civil Rights upon an often reluctant and conservative-minded Kennedy administration, the lunacies of that administration's provocative policies towards Cuba and their responsibility for building up the US presence in Vietnam. Yet, somehow, Bobby Kennedy emerges with credit even if at times, he comes across as too embroiled in keeping one eye on his brother's re-election chances in 1964. This is especially so on Civil Rights however much one might have ached to push him towards a faster and more productive use of his obvious morality, ethical sense and exciting ability to 'see' when he was looking. Bobby even in the 1000 days of JFK's administration still manages to use his deep and aggressive passions to sometimes good effect. It is also hard to escape the conclusion that beyond the 'darkness' that came upon RFK after his brother's assassination, lay the hope of light and if JFK's untimely death switched off one proverbially vital lamp in Bobby's life, the remarkable thing is that he was yet able to find in the years ahead the means to allow his own inner spiritual and ethical lamps to burn more fiercely, openly and productively. The result was for all to see as he stepped forth from the darker and sometimes murky shadows of Act One of his life into a more open realm as a new Brother Unprotected, the Brother Beyond, and, as Hilty says in the last pages of his work, perhaps the most 'vulnerable man in America'. In looking back at those years ahead, I can't wait for Hilty's completion of Act Two of Bobby Kennedy's life. I guess it has to be unusual to read a book that leads the reader to a pause in the life of a Kennedy rather than the violent full stops that most take you to. At least, however, here is one book of Bobby Kennedy in which I can preserve the illusion that he is still alive and on the threshold of the hope he became to millions across America. Maybe then Act Two shouldn't be written, but yet it has to be if this fascinating study is to reach its inevitable and still tragic conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: Hilty brings to life force behind Kennedy legacy
Review: Professor Hilty provides an excellent study and examination of Bobby Kennedy. Though this is an enormously hefty read. For those new to Bobby Kennedy, a more manageable introduction might be a rather recent book called Robert F. Kennedy: A Spiritual Biography by Konstantine Sidorenko. Though in contrast to Hilty's (brilliant but somewhat unwieldy) tome, this slim short form biography covers Kennedy and his life in great depth and the book's brevity will not disappoint serious biography readers. It is particularly an excellent book to take up before plunging in to Hilty's.
Rating:
Summary: Great American, great book.
Review: Robert F. Kennedy was an extraordinary man: former investigator, campaign manager for his brother, Attorney General, United States Senator. His speech to the 1964 Democratic Convention was one the most eloquent speeches ever given. His campaign for the Presidency in 1968 ended with one of the most heartbreaking tragedies in American history when an assassin killed him after winning the California primary. For myself, RFK represents the better part of politics- the noble spirit and the sense of purpose than the American way of life seems to have lost since his death. People can and should be better to one another, Bobby argued. Government should help the people, he said, but only if those people could help themselves. As a Democrat, I admire Bobby's argument for help, partnership and responsibility between the people and their government. Professor Hilty has done an excellent job. There are things about Bobby that are difficult to reconcile- why he worked for McCarthy is a good question -and Professor Hilty does a wonderful job writing about them and explaining them. He should be congradulated. I, for one, cannot wait for his next volume about RFK's life.
|
