The Kennedys

An American Drama

Encounter Books
Peter Collier, David Horowitz
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Age range 18 to 100

The Kennedys may well be the most photographed, written about, talked about, admired, hated, and controversial family in American history. But for all the words and pictures, the real story was not told until Peter Collier and David Horowitz spent years researching archives and interviewing both family members and hundreds of people close to the Kennedys.

An immediate classic, The Kennedys combines intimate knowledge with a perspective free of obligations to family loyalties and myths, bringing the story of four generations of “America’s family” fully into view. Collier and Horowitz capture the strain of ambition; the dynastic ebb and flow; the invention of a mythic identity; the corrosive underside of the dream of Camelot—developed over four generations—that led one young Kennedy to say, “We broke the rules and in turn we were broken by them.”

The Kennedys: An American Drama is a fascinating and brilliantly comprehensive history that brings together, for the first time, all the complex strains of the story of the Kennedys’ rise and fall. The authors have added new material showing the effect of the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., and the other family tragedies of the last few years, on the Kennedys and their mythic role in American life.

In addition to The Kennedys, Peter Collier and David Horowitz are the authors of dynastic biographies of the Fords, Roosevelts, Rockefellers, and Fondas.

Contributor Bio

Peter Collier was the founding editor of Encounter Books. His illustrious career as a writer and editor spanned more than half a century, beginning with Ramparts magazine in the 1960s. Among his other books are Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty, now in its third edition, Political Woman: The Big Little Life of Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Things in Glocca Morra, his second novel and final book.

David Horowitz is president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and founder of the online news magazine FrontPageMag.com. Among his other books are the New York Times bestseller Unholy Alliance, as well as The Professors, and his celebrated autobiography Radical Son.