Journals: 1952-2000
by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
List Price:
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $19.99 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-30
ISBN: 0143114352
Number of pages: 912
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Journals: 1952-2000
Book Review: self-serving nonsense from a political goon
Summary: 1 Stars
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s career can arguably be described as an abudance of talent gone to waste and ruin. He devoted himself and his life to being the ultimate political hack. He never wrote anything that didn't have at its base a political motive and a political agenda. As these journals show in such great detail, he was the ultimate hollow man for whom there was nothing beyond the party, its leaders and its platform. The world is divided into good (his party) and evil (anyone else) with no uncertainty and no grey areas.
What you will get in this book is not a view into an intellectual mind, but rather the mind of a stereotypical New England Ivy League snob obsessed with gossip, celebrity and having/hanging around money. He comes across as anything BUT liberal in the journal. His contempt for human life outside of New England is almost frightening.
As one example: his thoughts at the passing of Hubert Humphrey are that the man was worthless and counted for nothing in history. The same man who could explain away Bobby Kennedy working for Joe McCarthy and JFK ducking votes on McCarthy kicks dirt on the face of one of the great liberal politicians of his era.
He began his career with an absurdist fawning attempt to re-cast Andrew Jackson in the mould of FDR. This gained him the patronage of the Roosevelts in the 1950s and he became their house historian. He stayed their house historian until he got a better offer from the Kennedy family. One of the most interesting things in the journal is the man's self-delusion about his "great" unfinished work - the Age of Roosevelt. He makes every excuse in the world for why he didn't go back to it except the obvious one. He stopped working on it when the Kennedy family became his patron and he never came back to it because there was always another kennedy book to write or a book attacking whoever their current enemies were.
The journals also put paid to the old idea that Schlesinger was any kind of intellectual. What comes across in the journals is not an intellectual, but a courtier chasing after money, influence and brushes with fame. Its almost embarrasing at many points that the man sounds more like a starstruck hick than any kind of intellectual. No deep thoughts to speak of really.
Looking at his career, he wrote two kinds of books: Fawning political tributes to his patrons dressed up as history and attack screeds directed at whoever their enemies were (Eisenhower, Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter). Sadly, the journals make it clear that he didn't just do the job, he lived it in his own mind. The measure of a serious intellectual person is their ability to see things as they are in shades of grey but this man saw everything in the world as good or evil in the context of whoever his patron was at that moment. The level of immaturity and self-delusion that comes across in the journals is really sad.
We have a great liberal who makes his career as the servent and house historian of wealthy politicial families. We have a man whose greatest joy in life (revealed through the journals) seems to be the brushes with celebrity his service to his masters brings him....and money. A man who sets aside the one work (Age of Roosevelt) in his life seen as a serious accomplishment of merit and never seriously comes back to finish it.
People read journals of intellectuals to gain insight into private opinions and thoughts. What we get in this book is a bunch of backyard gossip about all the rich and famous except those who were his patrons of course. And for all his liberal pretensions, this is truly a man who lived walled off from the world in a bubble. He never gave the common man much thought or had many experiences in the world of the middle class let alone the poor.
In the end, what comes out in the journals is a hollow man. A man who carried on the pretense of being a blue-blood new england intellectual while in reality he was the status-chasing son of a german professor from Ohio. A man who carried on the pretense of being a liberal while the journals reveal him to be a elitist snob obsessed with celebrity and gossip.
Summary of Journals: 1952-2000
From his entrance into Democratic leadership circles in the 1950s through his years in the Kennedy administration and up until his last days, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was always at the vital center of American politics. For more than half a century, the master historian recorded his experiences and opinions in journals that together form an intimate chronicle of life at the highest levels of American politics and culture in postwar America. This extraordinary volume contains his candid thoughts about the signal events of our time, from the Bay of Pigs to the devastating assassinations of the 1960s, from Vietnam to Watergate, and from the fall of the Soviet Union to Bush v. Gore. Filled with Schlesinger?s trademark acerbic wit and tremendous insight, Journals is a fitting tribute to a most remarkable American life.Historical Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Historical Books
Alexander Hamiltonby Ron Chernow
Penguin Audio; Published: 2004-04-26; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $141.72
America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (Penguin Classics)by John Steinbeck
Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Sailing Alone around the World (Penguin Classics)by Joshua Slocum
Penguin Classics; Published: 1999-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sistersby Charlotte Mosley
Harper; Published: 2007-11-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Profiles in Courage (slipcased edition): Decisive Moments in the Lives of Celebrated Americansby John F. Kennedy
Harper; Published: 2006-10-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Lost Years: A Memoir 1945 - 1951by Christopher Isherwood
HarperCollins; Published: 2000-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.99
Price in other shops:
Thomas Jefferson: A Lifeby Willard Sterne Randall
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-06-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.11
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madmanby Simon Winchester
Harper; Published: 1998-08-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Patton: A Genius for Warby Carlo D'Este, este, Carlo D'
Harpercollins; Published: 1995-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.94
Stonewall Jacksonby James Robertson
Macmillan Pub.; Published: 1997-02-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $48.00
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Madeby Walter Isaacson, Evan Thomas
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1997-06-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.81
Price in other shops:
Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truceby Stanley Weintraub
Plume; Published: 2002-10-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.84
Price in other shops:
Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey Season 2 (Original U.K. Unedited Edition)PBS; Release date: 2012-02-07; DVD
Best price: $19.88
Price in other shops:
JFK (Director's Cut)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2011-01-04; DVD
Best price: $3.27
Price in other shops:
A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950by Jr., Arthur M. Schlesinger
Published: 2002-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.89
Price in other shops:
Trumanby David McCullough
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1993-06-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.83
Price in other shops:
The Best and the Brightestby David Halberstam
Ballantine Books; Published: 1993-10-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops:
Robert Kennedy and His Timesby Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Mariner Books; Published: 2002-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.42
Price in other shops:
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedyby Caroline Kennedy, Michael Beschloss
Hyperion; Published: 2011-09-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.99
Price in other shops:
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White Houseby Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Mariner Books; Published: 2002-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops: