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Title details for The Death of a President by William Manchester - Available

The Death of a President

November 20–November 25, 1963

by William Manchester
Edith Sheffer
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

As the world still reeled from the tragic and historic events of November 22, 1963, William Manchester set out, at the request of the Kennedy family, to create a detailed, authoritative record of President John F. Kennedy's death, including the days immediately preceding and following the assassination. Through hundreds of interviews, extensive travel, and firsthand observation, and with unique access to the proceedings of the Warren Commission, Manchester conducted an exhaustive historical investigation, accumulating forty-five volumes of documents, exhibits, and transcribed tapes. His ultimate objective—to set down as a whole the national and personal tragedy that was JFK's assassination—is brilliantly achieved in this galvanizing narrative, a book universally acclaimed as a landmark work of modern history.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 1, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781482955729
      • File size: 960560 KB
      • Duration: 33:21:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The noted author and historian wrote this groundbreaking work in 1967, detailing the final six days of John F. Kennedy's life. It was the only book on the subject authorized by the Kennedy family, and it provides intimate details of Kennedy's final hours. Joe Barrett's gravelly voice gives the book a comfortable feel, and he mixes in some character voices that make the work authentic. Barrett moves through the copious details, reading slowly enough that we can comprehend the facts but also allowing us time to process the gravity of what we're hearing. In some passages Barrett drops the ends of his sentences, but this book deserves a wide audience both for its writing and Barrett's narration. R.I.G. (c) AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 18, 2013
      The fall of a near-mythic leader is elegized in this sprawling, magisterial account of the killing of President John F. Kennedy, reissued for the assassination's 50th anniversary. Historian Manchester (The Last Lion) follows the Warren Commission in fingering Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman, but demotes him from anti-hero to contemptible bit player in the drama. The author instead recounts the demise and transfiguration of Camelot by spotlighting its central figures: Kennedy, a dazzling character martyred in an instant; Lyndon Johnson, vaulting from frustrated impotence to untrammeled power, guilefully maneuvering to consolidate his rule from the moment of Kennedy's death; Jackie Kennedy, self-possessed though stained with her husband's blood, leveraging her moral authority and instinct for pageantry to transform Kennedy glamor into tragic pathos. Manchester's fantastically detailed but engrossing narrative is Shakespearian in its sweep, taking in court intrigues played out through photo-ops and turf-battles over Air Force One, comic turns by publicity hounds, and eruptions of griefâand celebration!âfrom the great and the humble. Published in 1967, Manchester's portrait of J.F.K. is innocent of the tawdrier revelations of later Kennedy scholarship and can seem naive in its adulation, but he delivers a superb, riveting evocation of the assassination's impact on the national psyche.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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